Who: Logan, Bo and later, Lara What: Dealing with death isn't easy. When: In the last couple days Where: Logan's bar then Croft Manor Warnings: Mentions of dream character death, Bo breaks a hand on Logan's metal jaw, otherwise pretty low
Logan leaned on the bar, a toothpick sticking out of his mouth as he watched Bo work. She seemed distracted, and it was a little worrisome. It wasn’t even halfway through her shift when he finally said something. “You okay, darlin’?”
Bo was definitely distracted. Her dreams were weighing heavily on her. Everything with Kenzi, and Hale’s death, it was more than enough to dampen her spirits. Which was saying something when Bo tended to be more lively when she was working. Logan’s question caught her by surprise, mostly because she’d been distracted. “Just some dream crap,” she responded honestly.
Dream crap. Logan hated dream crap. His had stalled out while saving the little version of Laura. Now they were on a cross country road trip and taking a stop in Vegas. Xavier was…. Well it was worrying. So he got that. “Anything you wanna talk about?”
She really didn’t want to starting blubbering, so Bo tried to keep herself in check. “A good friend of mine was killed soon after proposing to Kenzi.” By now, Logan had at least heard quite a bit about Kenzi. If Kenzi had been the one to die, Bo would definitely not be working for a couple days after that. Dealing with Hale’s death was difficult, but she was doing okay with the dream bleedover. Or as well as could be expected.
“Shit. You sure you want to keep working today?” At least it hadn’t been Kenzi. Logan had experienced that kind of pain once himself and it wasn’t something easily recovered from. He still missed Kurt like burning. “Because that ain’t something that’s easy to shrug off.”
“Yeah, I’m sure. I want something else to focus on for a while.” It would do her some good. And at least she was out of the house. No doubt Bo would just go home and curl up on Lara when she was done working. If Lara wasn’t busy, that is. She certainly seemed to be a busy bee in doing research recently, so Bo tended to let her work without interruption if she could help it.
“You’ve cleaned that same glass three times,” he pointed out. But focusing on other things was also something he could understand. “Why don’t you take fifteen, eat something, maybe come into the back and hit me a few times. Might make you feel better.”
It had worked with Kitty once. Granted, she’d actually managed to kill him, but he got better.
Bo looked at him, then at the glass in her hand. She felt more than a little sheepish about it and put the glass down. “Taking a break might actually be a good idea.” Though at the mention of hitting him, she eyed him a little skeptically. “Wouldn’t hitting you hurt me?” She knew all about Logan’s metal skeleton and such. Lara probably wouldn’t be happy if Bo went about breaking her hand on Logan’s jaw.
“Just don’t hit anything that’s bony,” he pointed out. “Aim for the chest, the arms. Maybe the nose but that might hurt a little.”
Though she had a point. A bad punch to his skull or kic to a shin might break something on her instead of on him. But there was plenty of flesh to pound on.
“Alright then, I could probably use that.” Sure, Bo had superhuman strength, but she could still get hurt. And if she broke something hitting him, then it would be calling Lara for help healing. But she’d be careful and aim for fleshy parts above the waist. She had no desire to give him a low blow to the groin.
“Come on.” People had died for less. Hitting Logan in the balls was one of the ways to guarantee the claws came out. And that would be messy and unnecessary. But he didn’t mind a beating otherwise, especially when it might help someone relieve tension.
And sometimes he felt like he deserved the pain.
Bo nodded and headed into the back with Logan. She didn’t always do the talking with her fists, and she wasn’t completely in the mood to hit anything, but it could perhaps help her if she did hit Logan. She had other stressors from her dreams that she needed to work out.
“I’ll do my best to avoid hitting you in a way that would cause you to gore me. I’d rather not explain that to Lara.” Of course, she and Lara had already discussed the whole injury and impending death if Bo didn’t heal if Lara wasn’t around. But that didn’t mean that Bo wouldn’t feel guilty about it if she needed to sleep with someone else in order to keep herself from dying.
“Why don’t you start with some throws, then come at me with your fists.” Logan peeled his shirt off. He was well bit, with rippling muscles and probably something Bo would enjoy more if she wasn’t married. He moved the desk off to the side, then rolled his shoulders.
Bo momentarily forgot what Logan had said, she was too busy looking at those muscles. She definitely liked what she saw, and the succubus part of her suddenly roared to life. Her eyes even briefly turned blue before she shook her head and got ahold of her succubus instincts.
“Okay. Throws. Got it.” She drew in a breath, then went at Logan. She knew he weighed more than he looked, so she’d need to compensate for that. But while Bo couldn’t lift cars or anything like that, she did have a good amount of strength to her. Probably even just throwing Logan would be a workout for her.
Logan punched his fists together and made a ‘come at me bro’ gesture, just as Bo came at him. He didn’t try to make it hard on her, but he did give a few token dodges. “Try harder. Pretend I’m every fucker who’s fucked with you and those you care about!”
Bo wasn’t exactly the hand-to-hand sparring type. She typically preferred using a sword or throwing knives at a target. Or pulverizing the punching bag she and Lara had. But this would do, it’d make her work harder and hopefully distract herself a bit more from the emotional upheaval of her dreams. She went at Logan, missing him as he dodged a couple times. But she clenched her jaw and went at him harder, giving him a fake before trying to grab his arm, turn her back to him and heave him up and over her.
Logan weighed over three hundred pounds, not all of that the metal. But Bo still managed to toss him like a bag of wheat. He landed on his back, then kicked his legs out and jumped to his feet. “Again, an’ try to hit me harder than that, you hit like a nerd.”
“Don’t think you’ve been paying attention, but I am kind of a nerd,” she retorted with a smirk before she came at him, swinging a fist to land a punch to his chest. Aiming for the meat instead of the bone. She was keeping that in mind.
It knocked Logan back, ripping the air from his lungs. He caught himself before he fell, and grinned at her. “That’s more like it! Hit me again!”
Bo definitely hit him again. It felt good, and she was starting to imagine that Massimo was the one she was hitting. That asshole would get what was coming to him for killing Hale. Bo wasn’t a murderer, but she would definitely kill that little asshole without remorse. Which was saying something coming from her. And she threw another punch at Logan, this one stronger, fuelled by the anger.
She got a few good grunts from Logan, and he steeled himself as Bo’s anger came to the forefront. But he’d known what he was getting into and the bruises would heal quickly. She’d never have to worry about looking at him and actually seeing the damage she’d done. Maybe not super healthy, but not that unhealthy either. At least in his opinion.
It was probably good that Bo wasn’t focusing on any bruising that she left on him. She was more focused on what she wanted to do to Massimo. In fact, she became so engrossed in that train of thought that she forgot about not hitting Logan on bony parts. Her fist connected with his jaw and it was followed by a cracking sound, quickly followed by Bo cursing loudly and cradling her now broken hand. “Mother fucker,” she cursed through gritted teeth as she took a couple steps away from him. “Sorry,” she said as if it had hurt him more than she was currently hurting.
“Shit…” Logan rubbed his jaw, then grabbed Bo’s wrist to get a look at her hand. If he hadn’t been laced with metal she’d probably have shattered his jaw just then. It wasn’t a good sound that her hand had made and it was pretty obvious the damage was more serious than at first glance.
“Ow ow,” she repeated as Logan took her wrist. More than one bone was broken and pain was shooting up her arm. “I need to call Lara for an emergency heal.” Because she so wasn’t going to a hospital to get the bones set. Not when she could heal it easily. With her good hand, she reached into her boot and pulled out cell phone to call Lara. What, her boot was a good place to keep her phone, especially when working. It was more practical than in her cleavage. Especially if it started vibrating or something.
“Sure you don’t want to take a hit off me?” Logan asked. “Just enough to take away the pain, Lara can finish you off.”
“I’m tempted, really tempted, but Lara and I have boundaries. I can take a hit from someone else only if I’m mortally wounded and she’s not around. Well, more than a hit if I’m that seriously wounded, but still.” Besides, she’d much rather explain to Lara how she broke her hand in the first place rather than feel guilty for taking a hit from Logan and explaining that.
“Okay.” Logan shrugged. Either way she was going home. He walked over to his desk, and pulled out a bottle. He shook out a pill. “Take one of these.”
It was the least he could do.
Bo looked at the pill skeptically. She was in quite a bit of pain, and she was tempted to take the pill, but she didn’t want to be drugged out of her mind. Especially considering she was intending to finish her shift. She just needed Lara to come here and get a couple hits off of her so her hand would heal.
“What is it?” She asked.
“Vicodin,” Logan explained, like it was no big deal he had a narcotic painkiller just hanging around in his drawer. It wasn’t like it would do anything for him. At least when his powers worked.
Again, she eyed him, wondering why he had a narcotic painkiller in his desk. “I appreciate the thought, but it’ll be fine. Once Lara gets here, I’ll be good as new.” She pulled up the contacts on her phone and scrolled to Lara’s number and she hit call, as though expecting that Logan would let her finish her shift once her hand was healed.
“You’re going home.” Logan pointed at her. “Whether you take that pill or not. Darlin’, your head ain’t in the game, an’ at best you’re going to mess up drinks, at worse you’ll get something wrong enough to hurt someone.”
People had allergies, after all.
Bo blinked and looked at Logan. She stopped the call to Lara and opened her mouth to argue the point, but she knew that Logan was right. She let out a breath and lowered her head. She really didn’t like leaving in the middle of a shift. “I’m sorry about your jaw.” She turned to head out to her car to head home, forgetting about the attempted call to Lara. Her hand was killing her, but she could make it home. At least she wasn’t bleeding this time.
And, well, the pain distracted from thoughts of Hale for the meantime.
“Jesus fuck.” Logan followed after her. “You ain’t driving either. I’ll drive. Joe can manage well enough while we’re away. I’ll take a cab back.”
No way was he going to let her drive in this condition. It was kind of his fault!
And mean while Bo’s phone was ringing almost frantically.
Bo took a slow, deep breath, mostly to steady herself as Logan followed after her. “Fine.” Normally she’d fight, but right now she didn’t feel like fighting. She more felt like just going to bed and staying there. Once her hand was taken care of, that is.
Then her ringing phone caught her attention and she answered it. “Hello?” She tried not to sound like she’d been hit by a truck, but she kind of did sound like it.
“Is everything all right?” Lara shifted her phone to her shoulder. “It rang once then cut off. Butt dial?”
But her intuition thought it was more than just a simple butt-dial.
“Not exactly,” she responded as she tucked her phone between her ear and shoulder as she used her good hand to dig her car keys out and toss them at Logan. “I kind of broke my hand on Logan’s jaw. I was going to call you to come here and give me emergency healing, but Logan’s sending me home instead.” There was a lot more to it, but she’d explain it all when she got home. “And Logan’s driving me home despite the fact I could do it myself.” She cast him a little look.
Seriously, she’d once driven across the city while bleeding to get healing from Lara. She could drive one handed!
Logan caught the keys, then got into the car. He even helped Bo get buckled up, since she was one handed and all. He snorted at her description.
“You did what?” Lara sounded incredulous, and she actually pulled her phone away to look at it. “You punched Logan? Why did you punch - I don’t want to know. And you’re not driving with a broken hand!”
“I’m not. Logan’s driving. I’ll be home in a little bit.” And then it suddenly occurred to Bo that there was a chance Lara wasn’t even home. “Are you home currently? I probably should’ve asked that first.”
“I’m home, lucky for you.” Lara had started pacing, trying to not be worried and failing. Trying not to wonder if she hadn’t paid enough attention to Bo’s emotional state since the dream with Hale. “Why exactly did you punch Logan?”
Lara hadn’t missed anything. Bo had just tried to get back to her life without too much interruption. She’d just decided to go back to work before she was actually ready. “I wasn’t quite my normal self and he noticed and asked what was wrong. When I told him, he suggested I take a break, eat something and maybe even hit him a few times. So I hit him. And in the process of that I forgot his bones have metal in them and I hit his jaw and now my hand is paying the price.”
Of course as much as Bo would try to take this as a learning experience for the future and how to better hide her emotions, she really couldn’t hide her emotions that well. Not typically, anyways. Though if Bo was visibly angry, that was a sign that people should run. Especially the person, or persons, that she was angry with.
“Why would… right.” She remembered Logan could heal, which made it sound less of a problem. And in hindsight, she believed that it was a more or less healthy outlet. Except for the whole hand thing. Lara frowned. “Bo, you need to remember you can talk to me. Or spar me. Or anything better than punching the equivalent of a brick wall.”
“I know, I’m sorry. I just thought I was doing better than I actually was.” And there was the fact she had been seriously thinking about killing someone in cold blood. Bo was more angry than she’d realized.
“We’ll talk about it after your hand is healed, and you’re put to bed,” Lara said. She wouldn’t take any other answer but bed rest and talking. Lara was Done. Capital D.
Oh, she wasn’t really angry at Bo, but she was Concerned, and she expected Bo to put her foot down if the situation was reversed.
“Okay,” she respond. Again, she didn’t have it in her to fight. The anger she’d had while hitting Logan had dissipated in the wake of the pain of her broken hand. Which really did hurt and she was clenched her teeth, but trying not to let the pain get the better of her. She’d had worse than this.
Lara stopped pacing, wrapping her arm around her stomach. She felt something cold and hard there, and forced herself to try to relax. Everything was fine. Everything would be fine.
Still, she was relieved when the car finally pulled up.
Logan got out, handing Lara the keys, as he fished for his phone to call for a ride.
There was certainly a coldness to Bo currently, one that scared her because she wasn’t a cold person. There was a lot going on in her head now, it was difficult to keep it all straight. Getting out of the car, she was relieved to be out of the car and not going over bumps in the road. She was in a lot of pain.
“Thank you for the ride, Logan.” Bo said, remembering her manners. Her teeth were still clenched.
“No problem. Sorry about the hand.”
Lara pulled Bo inside, and closed the door. She gently took her hand to inspect it. “Hospital might have been better, but I doubt that’s ever a consideration for either of us.”
“It’s alright,” she said. It wasn’t like Logan could help it. She was the one that had forgotten to only hit the soft parts. When Lara took her hand, she winced at bit. “No, it’s not. I’d rather use my healing than go through a doctor setting the bones.” Not to mention it was her right hand, and she was right handed.
“I know, that’s why I didn’t make Logan take you to one.” Lara swept Bo up into her arms to carry her up the stairs, because she was feeling a little dramatic. And she didn’t want to do this downstairs, when it usually wiped her out. She sat her on their bed then sat next to her. “And you need to talk to me.”
Bo could’ve gotten up the stairs herself, but she didn’t say anything about it as Lara picked her up and carried her upstairs. When she was put down on the bed, she drew in a breath and cradled her broken hand in her lap. “I thought I could handle it, that I was okay enough to work today. But apparently I’m not. Logan caught me washing the same glass three times. I’m having a hard time processing Hale’s death.”
She sighed heavily, looking down at her hand. “Everything is going to shit in my dreams, I’m being a terrible friend, and now Hale’s dead. I didn’t realize how angry I was over it until I started hitting Logan. I just started thinking about Massimo, the asshole who killed Hale, and I got really angry. And of course in my anger, I forgot about Logan’s metal bones and punched him in the jaw, which resulted in this.” She gestured to her broken hand. “But I think what’s the most telling is I was contemplating just how to kill Massimo. Not wondering if I would kill him or not, but making the choice to kill him and thinking about how to kill him.”
That was probably the most worrying part. Bo didn’t really know if it came out of her pain and anger and wanting vengeance for Hale’s death, or if it came from that dark side of herself, the one she couldn’t control.
“Bo, you’re human. At least where it counts. It’s only natural to have a hard time processing this. Hale was important to you, and you’re clearly not acting like yourself.” She put her arm around Bo, her lips thinning as she explained further. “The right answer is to tell you that killing him is wrong. But that’s not the answer I’d tell myself. The man is dangerous, and he killed someone close to you. Chances are, he’ll kill again. You’d only be protecting yourself and your people.”
Dwelling on it and torturing him were probably the evil things. But just killing him? Necessary.
“I know that, but I don’t want to kill him because it’ll save lives down the line. I want to kill him because it’s what he deserves. And if I don’t, Kenzi probably will, and I don’t want Kenzi to have that on her.” Kenzi didn’t have a clean record by any stretch of the imagination, but she hadn’t exactly killed anyone either. Bo didn’t want her to find out what it felt like, even if it was in the name of revenge for Hale.
“He deserves to die for everything he’s done. And one way or another, I will make sure he gets what’s coming to him.” At least once Hale’s family was told. God, Bo didn’t want to be the one to break the news to his family. Hale’s family was powerful, and they would undoubtedly want blood. “Fuck, everything is so fucked up. Did I ever tell you that Hale was basically fae nobility? His clan was one of the most powerful clans of the Light Fae. This could ignite one hell of a war.”
Maybe that was the point. Ignite a way, sow chaos. That didn’t change Lara’s opinion of the man, or that he needed to be put down. If anything it reinforced it. “All I’m going to say, is that he needs to die. It doesn’t matter how or why, but what does matter is what’s in your heart when you do it.”
But they were killers, both of them, and Lara had killed for revenge too.
Bo had definitely killed before, but it was always been in a life-or-death type of situation, save for a couple instances. She’d taken the life of a fae just so no one else could use her for ill again. It hadn’t been easy to do, and Bo felt bad for it, but ultimately knew that it was for the best.
Killing Massimo was a little different. She wanted to kill the bastard. She would even plot how to kill him.
“And what if what’s in my heart when I do it is cold blooded murder?” She’d be no better than Massimo was the answer, but she didn’t voice it.
“Then you carry that with you, and you never forget it.” Lara pulled Bo’s face towards hers, intent on giving her that healing she needed. Physically at least. She knew Bo’s mental and emotional health would require a lot more.
Bo would need to wait and see what happened with Massimo. She could only hope that it wouldn’t be cold blooded murder, but if it was, at least she’d be the one to carry it and not Kenzi. As Lara pulled her face towards her, she knew what it was for. Bo leaned in and kissed her. She held the kiss for some moments before she broke it and took a hit of chi, eyes turning blue. The chi began to heal her hand. The swelling and coloring started to fade.
She took a second, far longer hit. This time, she held it until the bones in her hand snapped back into place and her hand was as good as new. Her eyes returned to their normal brown. “Thank you,” she said as she flexed her hand a bit. The pain was gone now, and her hand felt as good as new.
While Lara wanted to be better than she was (and probably was better than she thought), she knew what kind of person she was. And it used to keep her up at night.
She groaned into the kiss, the hit of chi drawing the sound out. The second hit was longer, but it barely made her dizzy - Bo had taken hits for far worse injuries.
Okay so maybe she was a little dizzy. "...how are you feeling?"
In Bo’s opinion, Lara was definitely better than she thought. But that was an ongoing battle that would continue to go on for a while yet.
“My hand’s healed. Me as a whole? I’m a mess.” At least she admitted to that now that she realized it.
“You’re not going back to work.” Lara ran her fingers over Bo’s hand. “And you’re calling in tomorrow, I don’t think Logan will mind and he’ll probably insist upon it. Then you have your days off, and we’ll find less painful ways of coming to terms with what’s happened.”
They couldn’t go kill anyone, but there had to be something they could do.
This time she didn’t flinch or wince in pain when Lara ran her fingers over her hand. “I’d rather just stay in bed.” If she couldn’t go back to work, then she’d rather just not leave bed. She doubted Lara would let her stay in bed the entire time, but she was just stating what she felt like doing.
“For this evening, I’m okay with that. Tomorrow though, we’ll go to our gym and do some real training. Then..I think I’m taking out out onto the water.” She glanced towards the dock. “Might be nice.”
Real training. That probably involved something other than hitting things. And considering the track record Bo had of exploding their punching bags? That was probably a wise approach. They should probably one day upgrade their gym so that it could withstand Bo’s superhuman strength. “I wouldn’t say no to going out on the water.”
“Maybe we can find a nice quiet cove…” Lara winked at her, but the flirtatiousness in her voice was a little forced. She was too worried about the situation to really feel it, and too exhausted in general. Between her own work and Bo’s problems…
For once, sex and other such activities were not on Bo’s mind. Her sex drive was fine, as Logan had proven earlier, but Bo just wasn’t in the mood. “That would be nice,” she responded. She’d need to remember to put her bathing suit on just in case they found a nice spot like that.
Lara moved behind Bo, sliding her arms around her and kissing the back of her neck. “When my parents died, Roth told me to think about the good times. The places we’d been, the things we talked about. Remember them for how they lived, not how they died. It should be the same for Hale.”
She leaned back against Lara, closing her eyes for some moments. This whole mess was probably made all the worse because Bo hadn’t really lost anyone before. Her adoptive parents were both alive. Her adoptive grandparents weren’t, but two of them had died before she’d even been born, and the other two died when she was too young to really remember. Sure people died in her dreams, but she’d brought Dyson back to life. Tamsin had come back, though she hadn’t actually known she’d died in the first place due to the whole train thing. So really, Hale’s death was the first real death she’d experienced.
“That’s a good thing to try to do. Though I imagine sometimes it’s way harder than others.”
“I’m not going to lie and tell you it’s easy, Bo. It’s not, but that’s the point. Hale was your friend, and he’s gone now. And it’s not fair.” Lara rested her chin on Bo’s shoulder. “It’ll never be fair.”
“It’s definitely not fair. Hale deserved better.” Hale had deserved way better. After everything that had happened of late, from when Hale took over as the acting Ash of the Light Fae up to the present, he had deserved better. Maybe if Bo had been there, she could’ve helped stop Massimo and kept Hale from dying. Or if multiple people had been there, she could’ve brought Hale back to life. But it was what it was, and now she had to deal with the consequences of it. Some tears started rolling down her cheeks again.
“I’m sorry.” It wasn’t enough. Never would be enough, but Lara needed to say it and hoped that Bo needed to hear it, or something like it. “Do you want to do anything? In his memory?”
She sniffed and snuggled against Lara some more. “Maybe? I don’t know what yet. Maybe something with music as he was a siren? I’ll also have to see if Kenzi wants to do something.” Bo would talk to Kenzi about that, about honoring him.
A male siren. That was probably attractive to some people. Lara bet he was handsome. “If you both need me to do anything, just let me know. I never met him, but I want to help.”
To Bo, Hale was relatively attractive. She’d never had an attraction to him, except perhaps for that one time she was under the hallucinogenic power of that underfae spider that was holding her, Kenzi and Hale captive inside their house. But even then, all she’d done was lick Hale then take a hit of his chi, which actually freed her from the freaky spider’s hold so she could save the day.