Secrets Don't Make Friends

**Saturday, October 5th**

The Big Team Base

With the broken glasses in whatever counts as evidence storage for the Big Base (which may or may not just be a cardboard box with “important” written in sharpie on the side that Verve made five minutes ago), Verve groans and flops down onto a couch in the chill out room. “What a day.”

Carmilla turns around from where she was sitting, perched on a stool like a gargoyle. Her phone disappears into the folds of her cape. She cocks her head, one of her slightly pointed ears twitching. “You alright?”

Verve nods, noting the cute ear twitch. "Yeah. But like, bank robbers with weird guns. My phone got wrecked -- uh, in the flooding of course. Who thought that would be a good idea." She lets out a nervous chuckle.

“It worked though! Their faces were like, so priceless. It’s easy to feel like a tough guy when you’ve got a big gun, but pretty hard when you’re standing to your ankles in sewage!” Carmilla chuckles as well, fangs flashing in the light of the room. She hops over to the other couch, sitting across from Verve. “That was my first bank robbery, how about you? You seem like you’re pretty experienced with these things.”

Verve laughs much more sincerely at Carmilla’s first point. “Fair. And it was my first one, too. I just joined Big Team like, two months ago? Something like that. I’m still super new. And you’ve been here for a few weeks, right? We’re pretty much on the same level there.”

Carm sighs, hugging her knees to her chest. "I've been here - in Halcyon, in the US - for… almost two years now, doing this. I was alone for most of it though, and, uh… I'm asleep most of the time, so I guess by time-I-was-awake it was more like a few months. It can get hard to keep track of time." She rests her head on her knees. "When I wake up, I don't know if it's the next day or ten years… if I didn't have my phone, my computer, I would have to judge by, what, the amount of dust on my coffin?"

Verve's eyes widen and she tentatively moves to sit next to Carmilla and rests a hand on her shoulder. "That sounds really hard. I'm sorry you're going through that. But now you have Big Team. Some of us would come looking for you well before ten years if you just disappeared."

Carm turns her head, smiling. "I guess I do. And, you know, it's kind of my own fault for refusing to eat people and stuff." She winks. "How about you? How'd you end up joining?"

Verve doesn't get why refusing to eat people equals long naps, even for a vampire, but figures it's rude to ask. "Oh! I was getting out and there was this clown, and me, Pinocchio, and Ophanim stopped him. Then Godspeed showed up and was like 'Hey, wanna join Big Team?' And boom, I was in Big Team. How did you join?"

“Hmm, I was at an electronics store and there was this line of toys that decided it was a good idea to start murdering, so I tried to stop it and so did some other people, one of which was already in the Big Team it turns out. I don’t think I ever even really spoke to Godspeed until he tried to punch my friend in the face like a week later.”

Carm pulls up a selfie on her phone, of herself, Weatherman, Grim and Seth at a somewhat broken electronics store. “It’s been nice to have people to do this with. Until then I just… woke up, wandered the city at night until I came across something bad going on, and tried to stop it, then wandered more until I got too hungry and had to go back to bed. It was lonely. I mean, I don’t have much of a life otherwise, haha.”

"Oh, right. No life, cuz you're a vampire." Awkward chuckle. "That's a nice picture. I'm glad you have us now. Who did Godspeed punch?"

Carm growls, a deep animalistic sound, as her face twists angrily. "Ellen! He said some bullshit about thinking she was her older self or something, as if that would excuse it - how can he be in charge if he can't even tell the difference between a teen and some Boomer or whatever?" Her eyes flash red. "And his own son was right there!"

Verve frowns. "That...I mean yeah, they look nothing alike." She shifts uncomfortably and looks up at the security cameras she knows stream footage to Godspeed's office. He was seeming worse every time someone told her about him. “Sorry for bringing it up. Do you stay here now, or?”

Carmilla shakes her head. “I have a place I was staying before - some abandoned warehouse in the docks - but recently I’ve just been staying at the community centre. I put a coffin in a supply closet!” She smiles widely, in on the joke. “How about you? Where do you live? I would love to hang out outside of superhero stuff sometime! I don’t have any non superhero friends yet… I mean, like, friends outside of all this.”

"At Mr. Crossover's -" she starts to ask, then freezes when Carmilla asks where she lives and to hang out. "Um. Well. I just. I'm super busy, and I don't, um." She stands, then sits. Taking a deep breath, she tries to push back the flight response. Her eyes close as she focuses on her response. "I'd love that. I don't really have friends either. But you can't know who I am. I can't have everyone knowing. It would...I mean...I just can't." She opens her eyes and looks at Carmilla, unsure how the other girl will respond.

Carmilla goes quiet, brows knit in confusion. She opens her mouth, then closes it again, before finally responding.

“I don’t understand. I don’t - I wouldn’t tell anyone… Is it me? Do you think I would betray you?”

Verve tugs nervously on her hoodie sleeves. “No! I mean, I just…It’s safer if no one knows. And Mr. Crossover and Ellen already know, and…” she trails off, unsure how to explain.

"Right, so you can tell Ellen but not me," Carm replies, hurt in her voice. "It's the vampire thing, isn't it? If you get seen with me it'd out you? It doesn't have to be in public! Or I could wear a disguise! I'm not… just because I wear this doesn't mean that's all I am! I'm not just the dead girl, I… I can be other things."

“No! That’s not it! I just, I’m just...it’s...complicated.” Verve’s voice rises in pitch, and she glances toward the door. Both hands are clenched into her hoodie sleeves.

“Complicated? I… If you don’t want to hang out with me that’s… fine. You don’t need to make vague excuses!” Tears spring to Carmilla’s eyes.

"It's not that! I just!" Verve stands as she sees the tears, panic welling up inside her. "I'm sorry!" she practically shouts, and in a burst of lightning, she's gone.

The room is very quiet after Verve leaves. A flutter of dark wings leaves the room a few minutes later.