Work Text:
Prompt: person A never learned how to drive, so person B tries to teach them, but B is such a bad teacher that person C has to take over.
Carmilla was lying on her bed nose buried in some ancient tome about Plato and the birthplace of philosophy, hugging Laura’s yellow pillow to her chest, when the owner of said pillow came bursting into their dorm room.
“Carm! Carm! Look at this! Look! I finally got it! Daddy finally sent our neighbour over with it! Oh, this is going to be so much fun, don’t you agree?! I can’t wait to tell Danny!”
Lowering her book just enough to be able to stare at Laura, the vampire let out a huff of amusement.
“Slow down Cupcake, you’re going to trip over your own tongue if you keep talking at that speed. What did you finally get?”
Rolling her eyes, the excited literature student jumped next to Carmilla on the bed, ignoring her girlfriend’s protests as she threw herself on top of her book and across a leather clad lap.
“My car Carm! My car has finally arrived, it’s SO! CUTE!”
Wriggling around happily, Laura quickly threw her arms around her vampiric roommate’s neck and started rubbing their noses together in an Eskimo kiss.
“Now we can finally go on a road trip! Ooooh, I can’t wait! This will be awesome! We’ll go see some proper lakes without any creepy sea monsters in them or mermaids ready to steal girlfriends!”
Carmilla snorted at the memory of both Laura and her needing to literally haul Danny away from the lake, making literal heart eyes at a very persistent siren trying to seduce their red haired Xena.
“We can have romantic walks across the beach, we can eat heaps of bad foods at the fair 3 towns over, we can sing songs as I have the perfect road trip usb ready to go, we can take turns driving so the other two can snuggle up in the back sea-“
“Sorry to interrupt your playbook of our next free weekends and holidays all the way up to 2025, but I just wanted to inform you that I, for one, will not be driving.”
Laura blinked her eyes at both the interruption and the long pale finger pressed against her lips to make her shut up for a second, but quickly recovered and managed to mumble around the cold appendage:
“What do you mean you won’t be driving? That’s not really fair to either me or Danny, Carm. I mean, I get you wanting to lay all mysterious and moody in the backseat, spread out like one of those film noir heroines, but you are literally the only one with perfect night vision should we get stuck driving in the dark. And, like I said, it’s not exactly fair you get to laze around all the time while Danny and I do all the hard work!”
Removing her finger from her girlfriend’s lips, Carmilla leaned in for a soft kiss against a pouting mouth.
“It’s not that I don’t want to Creampuff, though you do make a compelling argument about the back seat, but it’s more of a ‘I literally can’t’ situation.”
A deep inhale followed by a resigned sigh made Laura’s bangs flutter as she kept her eyes trained on the vampire she was currently straddling.
“I can’t drive, Laura. I never learnt how to.”
“Wha-what do you mean, you never learnt? You’re literally over 300 years old! Seems like you could take a few weeks out of your busy schedule of traveling the world and getting over 47 degrees to learn such a basic task! I mean, granted, not in the 1600s but there’s been cars for at least a century Carm, surely you could have learned?”
Smiling wanly at one of her two loves, Carmilla leaned back against the wall, pulling Laura further into her arms and tucking her head underneath her chin.
“It wasn’t really that I didn’t want to take the time Creampuff, it’s more that I couldn’t. Like you said, for a few centuries it was impossible as cars hadn’t been invented yet, and when they were Maman had locked me into that coffin.”
Swallowing thickly as she suppressed the memories of being buried in the cold, dark ground surrounded by blood and wood, Carmilla felt Laura’s arms wrap around her in a tight hug. Kissing the top of light brown hair, the vampire cleared her throat and continued with her explanation.
“By the time I broke out of said coffin, I didn’t want to set foot in something I considered another death trap and only a few years later Maman found me again and…well…let’s just say she had too many other tasks for me to undertake to let me get my driver’s license.”
“Then I’ll teach you!”
Startled out of her revery, Carmilla looked into the extremely determined eyes of one fired up Laura Hollis.
“You…you want to teach me how to drive?”
Sniffing delicately, the literature student straightened her back and took her favourite – and only – vampiric girlfriend’s face between her hands and squished her cheeks together.
“You don’t need to sound so hesitant about it! I’ll have you know I’m a very good driver! And I will make sure you will become an excellent driver as well, don’t you worry!”
Jumping off her speechless roommate’s lap, Laura marched over to her computer and started researching ‘How to teach your vampire how to drive a car’, throwing a “lessons will start tomorrow” over her shoulder to a suddenly nervous 340 year old creature of the night.
Surely, this could not go wrong, could it?
Barely 16 hours later and Carmilla seriously started regretting her life’s choices as she tried, for the umpteenth time in a row, to unsuccessfully drive Laura’s car for more than 5 meters.
“No, no Carm! You need to keep pressing the clutch pedal while putting the stick in second, without letting go of the gas pedal! It’s really not that hard!”
“I’m trying Laura, but while I’m usually exceptionally good at multitasking, driving a metal box isn’t as easy as bringing both you and Danny to climax at the same time. And I know what I’d rather be doing thank-you-very-much!”
Blushing furiously, Laura quickly yanked the keys out of the ignition and shooed the irate vampire away from the driver’s seat.
“Just, watch what I do with my feet alright babe?”
Sighing inaudibly, Carmilla flopped down into the passenger seat and tried, unsuccessfully, to look at Laura’s feet as she fluidly put the car in first, then second, then third, driving a small circle around the fountain that was standing in the middle of the small abandoned square they’d found somewhere near the back of the main Silas building.
“Now, just do what I just did and you’ll be fine!”
Rolling her eyes so hard the vampire feared they’d be permanently pointed towards the back of her skull, the dark haired girl threw her hands in the air and jumped out of the car.
“I would if I could see what you were doing Laura! You’re too close to the steering wheel for me to actually see anything! And I know you need to put your seat that much towards the dashboard because otherwise you wouldn’t be able to reach the pedals but that makes it impossible for me to see anything! I don’t know why you insisted on trying this in the first place, I never wanted to learn how to drive anyway! I don’t even think I’ll ever be able to!”
Pinching the bridge of her nose, Carmilla squeezed her eyes shut in an attempt to reign in her flaring temper. She was tired of trying to make a metal box on wheels do her bidding, she was hungry and… and she could smell Danny making a beeline for their position. Opening her eyes she saw Laura guiltily trying to put away her phone which she had undoubtedly used to text their read-haired girlfriend in order to come and calm down their irate vampire.
Sulkily making her way over to the dilapidated fountain, Carmilla sat down in a huff with her back to Laura, focussing intently on the moss covered reliefs etched into the marble in an attempt to shut out the undoubtedly disappointed glares the aspiring journalist was shooting in her direction.
‘Okay, what’s the emergency Hollis, did Carmilla break something on that car of yours?”
Pushing aside some shrubbery, Danny suddenly appeared with a backpack slung over her shoulders, grinning at her two girlfriends while not even out of breath from her mad dash through the woods at break neck werewolf speed. Seeing Laura happily smile back, she turned her attention to the vampire, only to see her sitting stiff and still on the edge of the fountain, shoulders tucked up all the way to her ears and obviously not wanting to look at her, or Laura for that matter.
“O-kay…what did I miss? I brought some cookies and blood, thought the both of you could do with a top up as you have been here for hours!”
Squealing in happiness, Laura flung her arms around the red haired lit-TA trying to both hug her and relieve her of her precious sugary cargo at the same time. Choosing to indulge the sugar fiend in this relationship first, Danny smiled and pulled out a packet of brownies from her backpack together with a thermos of chocolate milk, handing both to Laura with a ‘here you go sweetheart’. Leaving the tiny reporter-to-be with her cholate-y treats, the tall girl shook her head ruefully at her goth girlfriend and made her way over to the fountain.
“I got you some blood Carm, it’s from your favourite stash.”
Wiggling the milk carton filled with red liquid next to the vampire’s ear, Danny cooed internally as she saw Carmilla’s eyes roll into her direction, giving her the tiniest of smiles before a pale hand came up to grab at the container.
Sitting down next to her dark haired girlfriend, the TA silently watched as the vampire hungrily chugged from the carton, coming up for air after several long drinks and throwing the redhead a dopey smile.
“Thanks Xena, I guess I was really hungry and taking it out on our Cupcake. I’m sorry.”
Shaking her head, Danny put away the now empty drink and slung a long arm around her sheepish love, pulling her into her side and nuzzling her hair.
“Driving lessons not going so well huh?”
She felt more than heard Carmilla snort into her collarbone and grinned ruefully.
“Maybe I cou-“
“O MY GOD, I’M LATE FOR CLASS!”
Both of Laura’s girlfriends jumped in surprise as the tiny brunette suddenly rushed passed them.
“I’m sorry Carm, Danny, but I have to go! Mr. Aldritch has warned me that if I was late one more time he’d make me arrange all the books in the library chronologically instead of by author and there’s like a million books in there so I really gotta go! Could you take the car back to my parking spot Danny? I can reach the literature class quicker if I cut through the forest. Don’t worry Carm, we’ll continue these lessons later! Love you both!”
Throwing some air kisses over her shoulder, Laura rushed off into the woods, almost slamming into a boulder before disappearing into the trees.
Blinking in surprise, Danny felt Carmilla’s shoulders shake with silent laughter and they both looked at each other in amusement at their partner’s unavoidable penchant for being late.
Ruffling the vampire’s hair, the redhead cleared her throat before continuing her sentence:
“As I was saying, maybe I could teach you? I know Laura means well and she is a good driver, but she’s not good at explaining or teaching anything to anyone.”
Shyly ducking her head so most of her face was covered by dark locks, Carmilla peeked up at the taller girl next to her.
“Are you sure? I mean, it might be me you know? Maybe I’m just that bad at driving. I am very old after all and you know what they say about old dogs and new tricks…”
Knowing she had to cut off the vampire’s rambling before she worked herself into a proper snit, Danny smiled and covered the undead girl’s mouth with her own. Their relationship still new enough to not have discovered everything about each other, Carmilla’s brain immediately whited out at the taste of the redhead’s lips gently brushing against her own.
Keeping things soft but passionate, Danny eventually pulled away from her girlfriend’s mouth with several lingering pecks to her lips, grinning at the slightly dreamy look on the vampire’s face.
“Now, now, none of that self-doubt Morticia. Everyone is horrible at driving the first time they try, you just need someone to properly teach you and as we both know between the three of us, I’m the only one who has any actual experience in that field, so let me have a try okay?”
Still dazed from the taste of Danny’s mouth, Carmilla just nodded and then shrieked as the lit TA effortlessly lifted her into her arms before making her way to Laura’s car.
“Luckily daddy Hollis was kind enough to buy our girl a car so high even I can sit comfortably in it, so buckle up my blood drinking buttercup as your feet will not be touching those pedals for the next 15 minutes.”
Putting the vampire down for a second, Danny fiddled with the car seat until it was lowered down and backed up enough for her to comfortably slide into it without knocking her knees against her chin, after which she pulled an unsuspecting Carmilla straight into her lap. While a bit cramped, the redhead managed to sit back far enough so the dark haired girl could see her feet while still being able to reach the pedals.
“Now, just watch what I do for a bit and lean backwards so I can actually see where we’re going, and I promise you you’ll be able to drive circles around this fountain in no time.”
And by the time Laura had made it back to her girlfriends whom she realised were still at the abandoned square when she noticed her car was still missing from her parking space, Carmilla was indeed driving happily around the fountain, a proud Danny sitting next to her.