I recommend listening to Starman by David Bowie with this chapter
<3
Carmilla flicked through the sticker covered boxes of records, tapping her fingers to the one playing in the dim store.
The dregs of snow on her school shoes made puddles on the dusty floorboards that creaked underfoot. She had looked into the second-hand shoe shop quickly, but the prices of ugly shoes that hardly fit her and were made of gross, coloured leather, were too high for what they were. Her search for shoes that didn't rub against her ankles and trip her over and crease weirdly continued. Sadly.
She was pleased to discover that when she flipped over one of the record sleeves, she could read nearly all of the song titles on it with ease. Of course, they sounded like odd space themed songs, but she knew that without having to put together each letter in her head.
It made her smile.
Another Hogwarts student trudged into the store, fishnet tights under her school skirt she would've had to pull on in the bathroom of The Three Broomsticks to get past Filch's tight security checks.
The smell of the roses in Carmilla's bag filled the room. Or maybe it was just her and her unnerving nose. She flicked through a few more records and went back to the space one with a man standing in a rainy dark, presumably London, street. She recognised the cobblestone paths around the older parts of the city. Her town had cobblestone roads and street lanterns still.
Couch springs stuck into her hip when she flopped down on it. She wondered if there was any place in Hogsmeade she could get her ears pierced. She'd probably just have to ask around at a party until someone brought out a needle and a chunk of ice. Maybe there was a spell for it.
Hopefully Mistress They wouldn't be too mad when Carmilla returned home at easter with boots and earrings and literacy.
She turned around on the couch and pointed to the record player, glancing at the lady sitting by the front of the shop. "Could I play this?"
"Depends on who it is."
Carmilla squinted at the album cover. "Uh... Ziggy Stardust?"
The lady finally looked up from her newspaper. She pushed a few of the braids she had done in half up bun with flowers over her shoulder. She snorted. "Why'd you bother asking?"
Carmilla didn't know what to say to that, so she turned back around and took the record on the player out of it, and slipped the new one in, setting the album sleeve on the table next to it. She sat back on the couch and rubbed her eyes.
The first song had only just started when someone tapped her shoulder.
Charlie looked nervous. Nervous enough that Carmilla turned to face him properly on the couch, crossing her legs and turning the volume on the record player right down. She shuffled around. "Yeah?"
"Um..." he started, picking at his cuticles and glancing around the shop. There were a lot of posters on the walls. Ones she recognised from Sirius's collection, and a few from June's too, muggle ones. She hadn't expected that here. "I need to ask you something."
Carmilla nodded. "...Okay."
He nodded back and then looked away, eyes flicking between the antique lamps behind her. Carmilla waited another moment, but he only stammered about nothing.
She smiled at him. "Take your time. We've got ages until we have to head back. I think."
Charlie nodded again, quickly, and gulped. He started ringing his hands too, and she wondered if she should try out that calming charm she'd read about last night with the light of her wand, curtains drawn shut. Lumos really was a useful spell.
He peeked up at her, one eye scrunched shut. "Can you be my girlfriend?"
She stared at him.
"...Please?"
She didn't understand. Carmilla's chest felt weird, and she didn't like it. Charlie was her best friend. She was supposed to be his. He was the one she was supposed to gossip about boys with, not that they really did that much, but he wasn't supposed to be the boy.
Did he, what, think about snogging her every time they hugged and sat together and drew magical creatures for class? Was any of the time they spent together not about romance? The music was too loud. She wanted to cover her ears.
No. that wasn't right. Charlie wasn't like that.
She squinted at him and opened her mouth to speak, but then she frowned and looked down to the roses she'd bought for June to use as a reference while she painted the flowers onto the belt that she'd also got her friend. She looked to the lollypop sticks discarded in the bottom, near her empty purse. The ones he'd bought. The heart shaped ones.
Her eyes widened. "Is this a date?"
His face spiralled into panic, and he waved his hands around frantically. "No! not like that, wait... actually... Well yeah but... no."
"...Huh?"
The smell of must in the shop was making her nose itch. Charlie sucked in a breath. "I... I need a girlfriend. But I don't actually want one, and you're my best friend, so I won't be accidentally messing with your feelings cause you'd never actually want to date me, and... and..."
"Why..." Carmilla scrunched her nose up. Now she was even more confused. "Why do you need a girlfriend?"
"I...um..." Charlie trailed off. "You know how I was telling you about the guys in my dorm?"
"Yeah?"
"And how they're kinda shitheads?" he chuckled. It didn't ease the uncomfortable feeling in the small record store. He was still wringing his hands out and Carmilla wondered if she should say she needed to go to the bathroom and then climb out a window. Rose did that once. Then she broke her toe on a trashcan and Carmilla had to carry her home.
She didn't say anything. Charlie's shoulders slumped. "They always pick on me, and stuff like that. I can handle it, I'm fine, but..."
Carmilla narrowed her eyes. There was a chunk on red lollypop stuck on her fang. It wouldn't come off. It tasted sickly sweet now. "And you need to get a girlfriend to prove you're not a loser?"
He nodded, but his expression was still set in stone. She didn't like it. Charlie sighed. "Sort of. They think..."
He looked away and blinked quickly. Carmilla wanted to give him a hug, but she was a bit lost to begin with.
He looked around the store.
The girl with tights was gone. It was empty, save the woman sitting at the counter by the front of the store reading the paper. Some of the flowers had fallen out of her dark hair and landed on the ground. Charlie and Carmilla were tucked into the back corner on their squishy couch while the record spun quietly beside them.
"...They think, that... that I like boys."
Carmilla was about to ask him why he didn't just tell his asshole dormmates that he didn't like boys, when she saw him wipe his eyes with his sleeves quickly. He didn't look up. She frowned.
Why was he so upset about...
Oh.
Charlie flinched back when she touched him, but when she leant back into the faded green couch cushions he collapsed into the hug. Her robes were bunched in his fists, and she felt him shake.
He was more scared than she'd felt when she found out he knew about her secret.
And her secret warranted pitchforks and wooden stakes. Not this one.
Carmilla held him tighter. His hair smelt like honey soap and candle smoke, and she pressed her cheek to it aggressively. "Charlie, I don't know if you know... but you're my best friend."
She felt the grin on his face on her own shoulder, and then saw it when he sat back a little bit, wiping at his face. He chuckled wetly, and it sounded far more genuine than last time. He shrugged, and sniffed. "Yeah, I know."
"Good, and-"
"Oi! No canoodling back there!"
Carmilla let go of his tear-stained sleeves and peeked over the back of their couch. His head popped up next to her, and the woman at the bench glared at both of them over her newspaper displaying something about more muggleborn attacks.
She looked between both teenagers. "...Never mind."
They slunk back down, and Carmilla tried not to giggle. Then Charlie began laughing, his hand over his mouth.
She rolled her eyes. "Of course, I'll be your girlfriend, you dork... But I'm not wearing your sweater. It's the ugliest thing I've ever seen."
"You're a terrible girlfriend!" Charlie hissed back, poking her side.
"Watch it," Carmilla chuckled, and leant forwards to the record player on the low legless coffee table propped up on old record crates. She turned the volume up and a quiet choppy paced guitar filled the little record store. Of course, it had been playing the whole time and now they were in the middle of a song. Oh well.
There's a Starman waiting in the sky
"Maybe I'll have an affair," she finished, and flopped back, her bag of roses and heart shaped lollypops by her feet. They no longer made her want to throw them onto the ground and stomp on them. "Or poison you for the money."
"Yeah yeah," Charlie muttered, looping his arm through hers. "Shut up."
He'd like to come and meet us
But he thinks he'd blow our minds
Carmilla liked this song. She picked the chunk of lollypop off her fang and sucked on the hard candy. It tasted nice. Through the music she heard the bell above the door tinkle as someone else came into the shop.
"So, like... are you gonna propose to me in front of all your dormmates, or do we just shag right in front of em, or..."
There's a Starman waiting in the sky
"I hate you," Charlie said, leaning back and staring at the roof. Carmilla tilted her head too. There were cracked records glued to the wooden ceiling, cobwebs woven between them and dust bunnies stuck to the vinyl. "Just... yeah... I didn't really get that far into the plan."
"Dumbass."
He's told us not to blow it
"Just promise not to fall in love with me," Charlie said, glancing over at her with a smirk. His eyes were puffy and there was snot on his sleeves. He looped his arm through hers.
Carmilla grinned back. "Done."
"Okay, you don't have to be that quick about it!"
Cause he knows it's all worthwhile
i wish someone would let me direct this book into a show or something just so that I can make this chapter cause y'all cannot understand the absolute perfection that this could be like the little store and the song and they're crying and now I'm crying like ughhhh
it's giving perks of being a wallflower
<3