Who: Lara and Bo What: Bo has a dream and wakes up with her insecurities in control. And things devolve into an argument. When: This morning Where: Their home Warnings: Mentions of necromancy, gunshot wound to the stomach, and language
To say that the dream started out awkward was an understatement. Bo had once again gotten smuggled into the Ash’s compound to meet with Lauren via body bag. And then she’d met Nadia, who was in a coma. To say that she felt really weird about it was an understatement. And from there, it was off to the Dal where Trick had called her and Dyson to help him. The husband of a friend of his had died, and someone and dug his body up and stolen it.
Bo and Dyson followed the trail in the graveyard, and it led them to a Fae that ate human flesh. That experience had been more than a little disgusting, and it made Bo’s skin crawl, especially when she’d used her emotional manipulation power and he wanted to bite her. She’d slammed his face into the table instead, but that was not a comfortable experience, getting hit on by a Fae that wanted to literally eat her.
But they’d gotten a lead, that there was a Lich in town, and that perhaps the missing body of Kristoff was with him. Paying a visit to him was also a bit of an uncomfortable experience. He’d waxed poetic about wanting to know what it felt like when a succubus fed, about how it must feel to feel such unbridled passion. The Lich invited her, plus one, to a party that afternoon, so she took Lauren considering Dyson being Light Fae would be breaking the rules.
After talking with Trick and determining that the Lich achieved immortality due to putting his life essence into a phylactery, and Bo thinking it was the creepy portrait of the Lich (points for Bo getting the Dorian Gray reference Trick made!), she took Lauren and went to the party with the intention to get Kristoff back. The reasoning for her taking Lauren was because the Lich knew pretty much everything, and that perhaps he could tell them about the nail that the Morrigan said was supposed to be the key to helping Nadia.
The Lich had prepared a show, and things were going well enough until Bo grew way too tired of playing the Lich’s game. So she drew a knife and held it to the painting. However, the painting was not the phylactery, and the Lich’s “dolls,” all of whom were people who had died and he’d brought back to life, took Bo and Lauren prisoner. The Lich tried to get Bo to feed, an experience that he so desired to see, but she refused. She wouldn’t feed on Lauren for the pleasure of another. Upon saying that she’d rather die than kill another innocent person, she was shot in the stomach by Annie Oakley. But even then she didn’t feed. Instead, as the Lich was about to kill Lauren himself, Bo blacked out, and the power within her took over and she sucked the chi out of everyone in the room, except Lauren.
As the Lich was dying, he said the nail was an African shaman’s cursing nail. She needed to find the shaman who cast the curse, pull the nail out and Nadia would wake up. Bo also breathed some chi into Kristoff so he could be reunited with his husband. It wasn’t permanent, but it was something. The dream then ended being back in Lauren’s lab, where Lauren kissed Bo in front of Nadia’s comatose form.
Upon waking, Bo instantly felt like she needed an extremely hot shower. So much creepy shit had happened, and it left her feeling unsettled. Not to mention that whole group chi sucking thing that she didn’t remember happening. She pushed the covers back and that’s when she saw the blood.
“Oh shit,” she muttered, checking her stomach, but the gunshot wound had healed. The blood on her stomach was still sticky, and it was all over her side of the bed. Thinking only of a scalding hot shower, Bo slid out of bed and went into the bathroom, running the water and turning it as hot as it would go. And she began to scrub at her skin, first washing the blood off, then she started scrubbing at the rest of her body, paying no mind to the temperature of the water.
Lara’s dreams had been much more peaceful for once, something she was grateful for. But as she woke up she realized something was very wrong. Bo was missing, but there was something very wrong about the bed. Her groggy state quickly passed as she recognized the smell of blood. “Bo?”
Alarmed, she crawled out of the bed and looked around. She followed the sound of the water. “Bo, are you all right?”
Obviously she wasn’t, but a quick visual inspection showed no remaining wound. Which was a huge relief.
Having been so focused on getting herself clean, Bo jumped slightly when she heard Lara’s voice, dropping the soap. “Shit,” she said, taking a breath before leaning down and picking up the soap.
“The gunshot wound healed before I woke up,” she replied, not exactly answering Lara’s question, but confirming the injury had healed. It also told Lara that something had obviously gone down. Though Bo hadn’t been shot before. Fae typically attacked her with other means, such as more medieval weaponry or powers, not guns.
“There was nothing okay about that dream.” She went back to scrubbing. The blood had been washed away by this point, but it hadn’t stopped her skin from crawling.
“We can get new sheets,” Lara assured her. She ran fingers through her hair, relieved that Bo had healed from a gunshot wound, though she was upset there was a wound to begin with. That didn’t stop her from making sure there weren’t any new scars. “What happened? Tell me about it before you wash yourself raw?”
She looked at Lara, managing to stop scrubbing at herself. She pushed her wet hair back and out of her face. “For starters, Lauren had me meet her girlfriend, Nadia. Who’s in a coma. That was entirely awkward. Then Trick asked me and Dyson to do a favor him. The husband of a friend of his had died, and someone had dug his body up and stolen it. We followed the trail in the graveyard and found a murdered and butchered groundskeeper. Like literally butchered, the way one would butcher a cow for meat. This man had similar parts removed from him. Dyson knew of a Fae that fed on human flesh and ran a butcher shop, selling human meat.” Bo shuddered and gagged slightly, remembering the butcher.
“Fuck, that was one of the creepiest things I’ve seen. The guy bit off his own finger and ate it right in front of me. And he tried to bite me.” Another shudder ran through. She’d seen a lot of shit in her dreams, and while she watched way more slasher movies than was good for one’s health, this is what turned her stomach. Of course, seeing a Hollywood rendition of cannibals is one thing. Actually standing a foot away from one, and touching them, was very much another.
“Lovely woman, cheating on a comatose person,” Lara commented. She stripped out of her knickers and stepped into the shower to help scrub Bo. She thought maybe the friendly contact might make her feel better and worried it might make her feel worse. But she wanted to try anyway. She rested her hands on Bo’s shoulders and squeezed gently.
“That’s disgusting, did he really think that was some kind of foreplay?” she wouldn’t be surprised, some people were sick that way. Her fingers tightened a little. “Or maybe never mind that. I’m not sure I want to know.” Cannibals were one thing she hadn’t actually encountered but was pretty sure she would some day.
Correction, in one set of dreams there’d been cannibals. But the stereotype made her feel vaguely uneasy.
“She’s actually not in a coma, she’s cursed. But that was something we found out a bit later.” The water was probably way too hot, but Bo didn’t seem to mind it. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath as Lara got in the shower with her. She was rigid when Lara put her hands on her shoulders, but Bo didn’t pull away.
“It was his reaction to my emotional manipulation power. He wasn’t answering our questions seriously, so I gave him a dose to loosen his lips. His response was that he wanted to bite my cheeks off and fry them in butter. His face was then introduced to the table when he tried to move towards me.” She shuddered again. “Anyways, after threatening him with a vegan diet in a human jail for the rest of his life, he gave us the information we needed. Found out there was a Fae in town that was a Lich. He bought the meat from the butcher, so Dyson and I paid him a visit. He had Kristoff, the body we were looking for.”
And then Bo just stood there, letting the scalding water run over her. She closed her eyes again, remembering the way the Lich had glorified her, and it only seemed to deepen the self-hatred she carried around.
Very gently, Lara started to help Bo wash, listening to her talk and absorbing what she was saying. If it was a curse then it could be broken, but where would that leave the three of them? It wasn’t fair to either Bo or Nadia. She knew a Nadia, from her dreams. Obviously not the same person.
“That wasn’t your fault, Bo. His reaction to your powers.” Though there was something about that Lich that seemed to be bothering Bo more.
In all honesty, Bo expected Lauren to go back to Nadia if the curse was broken. She wasn’t exactly okay with that, but she wanted Lauren to be happy regardless of what that entailed.
“No it wasn’t, but I should’ve threatened him with tofu first.” But that was enough about that guy. Bo just hoped that she didn’t have to meet him again, but if she did she’d definitely take some tofu and salad with her to shove down his throat.
She fell silent for several moments, just trying to focus on Lara’s movements to try and keep herself centered. “Dyson and I met this Lich. He waxed poetic about my being able to kill people with a kiss, about how I was divine. He romanticized everything that I hate about myself, that my dream self hates about herself.” She looked away from Lara, gaze on the floor of the shower. It seemed that everyone seemed to either love or be fascinated by the fact she was a succubus. But there was nothing fantastic or interesting about it. If she’d had a choice, she’d rather be a normal human woman. She didn’t want these powers. She didn’t want the potential to live for thousands of years.
Bo just wanted to be normal. She wanted the proverbial white picket fence and spend her life with someone she loved. She didn’t want to have the potential to kill them if she didn’t control her kisses.
Sometimes Lara wondered if killing all the Dark Fae might be easier, but then there was generalizations versus reality. Not all Dark Fae were evil just like many of the Light Fae weren’t good. Really, the whole damn society needed to be turned on its ear.
“That’s not your fault either. That’s no different than a man fetishizing our relationship, or someone latching into a racist stereotype no matter how ‘positive’ it might seem. Succubus or human, I’d love you all the same.”
Bo definitely agreed Fae society needed to be turned on its ear. That’s why she’d remained neutral because both sides had such heavy negatives, but both sides also had their positives. But the establishment needed to be torn down, and the Fae needed to be dragged into the 21st Century.
“And what if I hurt you with my powers? Or even kill you? I couldn’t live with that.” Sometimes she didn’t understand how her dream self could live with all the guilt of all her lovers that she’d killed along the way. Just the thought of her hurting or killing Lara was more than she could bear.
Lara took Bo’s face in both of her hands, and looked her in the eyes. “You could hurt me. Or i could hurt you, neither of us are without issues. That’s not going to chase me away or make me hate you for simply being who you are. And in the end, I think you’ll learn to live with it. You’re a survivor, like me. And i’d want you to survive.”
She looked Lara in the eye, fear and self-loathing evident in her own eyes, though some tears started to sting her eyes. “I don’t know how well I’d survive if I did something to you. And what if that new power rising in me hurts you? I can’t control it. I don’t even remember it happening, and that scares me. And it happened in my dream. I sucked the chi out of everyone in the room except Lauren, but I don’t remember doing it. One second I was basically bleeding out from a gunshot wound, the next I woke up on the ground, no wound, and everyone else was dead or dying.” She drew in a ragged breath. “I’m scared, Lara. I’m scared of what’s inside me, of what I am.”
“I’ll keep an alarm clock handy,” Lara promised. She rubbed her thumbs across Bo’s cheek. “There are things in this world we can’t control. This is a part of you, but it doesn’t make you a monster. That you’re worried about it spells out clearly just how human you are. I trust in you to do the right thing when the time comes for it, and to find that control when you think you’ve lost it.”
She pressed her lips together tightly. It was a constant battle with herself, trying to deal with the succubus thing and trying to combat her mother’s voice that still echoed in her head. Which was why she was so glad to have Lara and Kenzi in her life. Their voices helped to combat the war that Bo was waging internally. “I feel like a monster. I don’t know how I could control something that makes me black out when it takes over.” Not to mention that no one seemed to actually be concerned about that ability in her dreams. Lauren seemed to just brush it aside, but was this power actually normal for a succubus? Or was Bo different? “I don’t even know if this thing is a normal ability for a succubus, or if I’m just...abnormal or something.”
“You’re not a monster,” Lara insisted. She turned the shower water off. If her skin was scalding Bo’s must be even worse. “It might be because of your dual nature, or it might be normal succubus abilities, but that doesn’t make you a monster, it just makes you different.” A monster would be Mathias from her dreams. Himiko (and it wasn’t her powers that made her the monster, it was what she did with them). Trinity.
But Bo, Bo wasn’t a monster.
Bo had scarcely noticed the water on her skin. But there was some definite scalding going on there. “I hope it’s a normal succubus thing. I don’t need something else making me that much more different.” Sometimes it was difficult to hold onto her grounding in humanity. She wasn’t human any longer, and she was desperately trying to pound her square peg back into the round hole. She didn’t want to be Fae, she was resisting it as much as she could. But she well knew it was a losing battle. She couldn’t change her genetics.
Lara hugged her, pulling her head in against her shoulder and stroking her fingers through Bo’s wet hair. “I suppose we’ll find out, and then we’ll deal with it, whatever the answer is.” She was glad she’d gotten to know her before the succubus thing. It was probably a relief to both of them that they didn’t have to try to answer the question of ‘is it Bo or the seduction powers?’
Bo wrapped her arms tightly around Lara, pressing her face into her shoulder. It wasn’t easy for her to accept what she was, and it was going to be something she would struggle with for a while. But it was made easier having people who cared about her despite the whole succubus thing. And it was definitely a relief that they had met, and slept together, before Bo had become a succubus. She knew without a doubt that it was her and not the seduction powers.
Though she knew the seduction powers certainly helped give their love life some spice. But that was beside the point.
“Thank you,” she said, voice muffled by Lara’s shoulder.
Lara just nodded, squeezing Bo a little tighter. She didn’t need to say thank you, but this wasn’t the right time to point that out. Nor was it the right time for the other thought she’d had, so she kept that idea to herself. Instead, she coo’d a little bit, and kissed the side of Bo’s head. “You’re a beautiful human being, Bo.”
Even if she didn’t need to say thank you, Bo still would. She didn’t think many people would want to be around her with the sort of powers she had, and she didn’t want to take Lara and Kenzi’s acceptance and help for granted. Though sometimes she didn’t think she was that great of a person despite the fact she had a heart of gold, and an incredibly selfless heart on top of it all.
She continued holding onto Lara for a good minute or two before it started registering that she was getting a little cold. And her skin was tingling from the scalding water beating down on it. “Perhaps we should dry off before we catch a cold,” she said softly.
“Toweling off sounds like a good idea,” Lara replied. “Then we’re going to break into the emergency chocolate and jaffa cake stash and we’ll stuff our faces until everything feels better. How does that sound?”
“I think that sounds great. And I want some coffee.” Coffee and chocolate, the breakfast of champions. Or something. Bo didn’t exactly care if they didn’t go together, she wanted chocolate and caffeine. She placed a kiss to Lara’s shoulder before she pulled back to grab a couple towels, handing one to Lara and then she dried herself off and wrung her hair out.
“We’ll even break out the good stuff,” Lara remarked. “I think we both deserve it.”
After that dream, Bo wasn’t going to argue that point. Once she was dry, she went and found some clothes, pajama pants and a tanktop and pulled them on. She scratched her head a bit, then turned to look at Lara. “Can I bounce an idea off of you? And please be brutally honest about your opinion of it.”
“Anything you want,” Lara said. She’d picked out similar clothing for herself - really they had a very similar casual style. It was just that Lara went with rugged while Bo went more gothic when it came to non-casual or going out clothing.
Bo did go heavy on the gothic side of things. Not to mention that’s how she usually did her make-up as well, heavy as all hell on the eyeliner and eyeshadow to accentuate her eyes. She’d never quite grown out of that stage. “There’s been something I’ve been debating about for a little while, and I’m not entirely certain I could actually pull it off. But in my dreams, Trick owns a bar called the Dal Riata, and I kind of miss it. I had this really crazy idea of making my own Dal here. But, you know, high school drop out here who knows nothing about business so obviously I’d need a couple diplomas before even considering that.”
“You want to run a bar?” Lara asked, both of her eyebrows shooting straight into her hair line. “That’s …. Well I’ve tended bar before and so have you, we both have at least some idea of what’s involved. If your heart is set on the idea, go for it.”
“Sort of? I mean, it’s just been an idea I’ve been kicking around. But it’s probably a stupid idea since school and I don’t get along, and math isn’t exactly my best subject.” Bo shrugged and started to head off to the kitchen. Science and math had always been her worst subjects in school. Perhaps she should stick to just mixing the drinks instead of running a bar. But it also made her wonder what to actually do with her life. Could she pull off being a private investigator like in her dreams? Probably not, she needed a license and crap for that.
Sometimes she really did hate how the high school dropout came back to bite her in the ass whenever she tried to think of something to do with her life.
“It’s not a stupid idea. While I do think you should get a basic degree, you can hire someone to help with the numbers. Someone you’d trust of course. Maybe have someone cross check the numbers. But I don’t see why you couldn’t try, at least.” The business side of things was really the worse, but Lara could recommend a couple of the people who’d helped her with that side of her expedition plans.
“Maybe I should just stick to bartending. It’s easier than trying to get degrees and figuring out how to build a business from the ground up. And it’d probably go belly up sooner rather than later anyways.” Bo didn’t exactly have faith in herself to stick out school long enough to get a degree of any sort. While a business degree would be exceedingly useful, it most likely was going to deal with material that she wasn’t strong in.
Reaching the kitchen, she went and started the coffee brewing before she went to dig into the emergency chocolate supply. Kenzi would probably have the better chance at running a business than Bo would.
“Bo,” Lara said, following her as she went digging for the chocolate. “Hold on. Nothing is going to go belly up if you don’t try. Wouldn’t you rather try and fail than not try at all? Failure isn’t the end of the world, and i think you stand a better than even chance of succeeding. The only one stopping you is yourself.” She wasn’t angry, but she probably came off a little cross.
Bo sighed and looked at Lara. “If I try and fail, it’s just another failure in a long string of failures I’ll have. And I already know I’m shit at being a student, so why try and get a degree when I know it’ll only be hell with a very high percentage that I’ll drop out. Again.” Bo might’ve been the only one stopping herself, but she knew she wasn’t a good student to begin with. She doubted that she’d ever actually earn a degree in anything. “I shouldn’t have even brought it up. I don’t know why I did.”
That was a lie, she knew why she’d brought it up. She’d wanted a subject change from her dream. But this subject wasn’t going anywhere positive either. Clearly she’d woken up in a negative mood, and it wasn’t going away so easily.
Lara frowned. “So you’re a bad student. With proper motivation and help you could turn out to be a good student. Are you trying to talk yourself out of this?” It almost sounded like Bo was trying to convince herself she didn’t really want it. Or she didn’t want it and was merely looking for a better excuse not to do it.
“What if I am? People talk themselves out of things all the time.” Bo took a large bite of chocolate, not for the first time wondering what she’d do with her life. She didn’t want to leech off of Lara, but what skills did she actually have that she could put towards a career here? Mixing drinks. She could do that. She also wanted the Dal, but she knew she’d never run it as well as Trick did. So really it was best to stop this before it got started because she’d only be disappointed.
She knew she couldn’t force Bo to do something, even if she thought it was something she could pursue. But Lara disappeared, returning a minute later with her tablet. Maybe if they looked at what it took maybe that could make Bo excited about it. “Lets see what it entails to get a business degree, and what you need to know to actually run a bar. Do you want to serve food? Make it a pub?”
When Lara disappeared, Bo was going to take some coffee and chocolate and disappear herself and not come back until she was in a better mood. However, she’d only gotten as far as pouring herself a cup of coffee and dressing it the way she liked it. She glanced over at Lara. “No, just a bar.” At most there’d be appetizers, but no. It would be drinks only. And pool tables. Though sadly lacking in Trick’s library and wealth of Fae knowledge.
Lara started google searching. “Well, this recommends setting up a business plan. You need to figure out location, and operating costs. And there are permits and licenses. You'd want to set it up as an LLC. Of course there's securing funding and getting everything set up." She scrolled down, skimming. "There are a half-dozen permits and licenses depending on where you set it up."
Bo took a drink of her coffee, taking a moment to savor it. Just the mention of a business plan made her eyes glaze over. But she supposed she would be better off on that front if she was taking business classes. She supposed she could always pick Tifa’s brain since she worked for her, but she didn’t know how helpful that would be either. Bo could just go glossy-eyed after a minute and not retain anything.
“And I’m already lost on a business plan. Clearly that bodes well.” She shoved some more chocolate into her mouth. She felt like drinking some vodka or whisky or something, but it was way too early for that.
“It’s no different then looking at what I do,” Lara suggested. “I want to go some place, I need to find out what permits I need, what supplies, who to hire when I’m there, etc etc. This is the same type of thing - thinking about what you need before you actually start to do it, If you have a plan on paper it makes it easier.”
“It only makes it easier when you understand what all needs to go into it.” Bo was selling herself a bit short. With all the bars she’d worked in, she had a better idea of what it took to run one than she thought she did. “But I suppose that’s the sort of stuff you learn at college.”
“You already know a lot what goes into running a bar,” Lara pointed out. “And anything you don’t know you can learn in school or from talking to people who’ve actually done it. And experience. Nothing beats actual experience. And i’m sure you’ll have your share of panic attacks as you do this but I’ll be there to support you.”
Logically, she knew Lara was trying to help. And logically, Bo knew she needed some sort of degree to go anywhere in life. If she wanted to go the legit track that is. She could easily ask Kenzi to use some contacts and get some not-so-legal things in order for her, but she wasn’t going to put Lara in that position. Bo sighed and put her head down on the table. “I don’t think I can do this.”
Setting down her tablet, Lara leaned her palms on the table and watched Bo. She didn’t say anything this time, simply watched and waited for Bo to sort through whatever was going on in her head.
Planning was something that needed to happen, and it was something that Bo hadn’t actually done. She’d always flown like the wind, drifting from place to place as she wished. Not having ties had made it easier to run, but it also had been a lonely lifestyle. And now that she had ties, had reasons to stay somewhere, she didn’t really know how to proceed.
After a minute, she lifted her head and propped it up on her hand. “What would I have to do to get a high school degree?” Because she’d obviously need that before she even tried to decide about college.
“Tests,” Lara replied. “It’s called a GED, isn’t it? I know its different here in the states than back home, but I think you just take a test. And I can help you study for that.”
“Oh great, tests. I kind of sucked at those.” Bo sighed heavily again. “Clearly the past always comes back to bite you in the ass. Hard.” She just hoped that this was the only thing that came back to bite her. She didn’t think she could handle anything else coming back.
“You’ll get through it. I know a few tricks Sam used to use to help her on tests.” People like that were brilliant in their own way, but tended to freeze up on tests, especially if there was a time limit. Lara knew she’d have to help Bo get through it, and there were going to be many long study nights. And possibly bribes. Sexy, sexy bribes.
Bo didn’t think she was brilliant in any way. She was street smart, and knew how to mix alcohol well, but that wasn’t brilliant in any way. She rubbed her face a bit. “Isn’t Sam a genius or something? If she needed tricks to help her on tests, that’s kind of a dim outlook for me.”
“She’s great with film and brilliant with composition. But there were subjects she was hopeless in. And you’re not stupid, Bo! Smarts don’t just come in school subjects, and I doubt you’d do terrible anyway!”
“No they don’t, but on these tests it is the school subjects that get graded. They aren’t grading me on my knowledge of types of alcohol or on my street smarts.” Which was a valid point. Street smarts and common sense only got one so far in school exams, which wasn’t all that far really.
“That’s what studying is for,” Lara pointed out. “We can find out what’s on those tests and you can study for that. It’s probably secondary school maths, sciences and history. English too. I think you’re not giving yourself enough credit.”
“I can already tell you I’m going to bomb the science portion regardless of how much I study. Science was my absolute worst subject. Math was a close second to that.” Bo knew what she was and was not good at when it came to school subjects. She sighed and took a long drink of coffee. She was starting to want to just hit something. That was something she was good at.
“Can we stop talking about this before I’m tempted to see if I can punch a hole in the table?” She was getting exceedingly frustrated, and she imagined Lara was as well. So really it would just be better to drop the subject.
Lara held up her hands. They were getting no where and she wasn't sure why Bo had even brought it up if she was going to argue so vehemently against what she needed to get her foot in the door. Her self-esteem was so low that Lara wasn't sure what to do. "Lets not damage the furniture."
She took her mug and went to refill it with coffee. “I’m sorry. I’d thought changing the subject from my dream would help, but clearly it didn’t. So I think I’ll just stop talking until I’m in a better mood.” Whenever that would be. Bo was definitely in a negative mood, which wasn’t so unexpected after the dream she’d had.
“Shall I pen you in for next March?” Lara stepped away from the table, giving Bo some space as she did so. She loved this woman, she really did, but sometimes it was incredibly frustrating. Which wasn’t Bo’s fault, at least not in any way Lara could blame her for. But frustrating.
At that comment, Bo shot Lara a look. “You know what? Yeah, do that. Maybe by then the dream shit will be done, too.” And with that, she grabbed her chocolate, refilled mug and headed for the spare bedroom. At least she could stay in there for a while and stay out of Lara’s hair.
Lara stared at the space Bo had occupied, then exhaled slowly through her nose. Rather than disappear into the library, she opted to dress and pull on running shoes. Maybe a good jog would give them both time to think about things.