Bo Dennis is not a lost girl anymore (faetedlove) wrote in valarlogs, @ 2017-10-26 20:17:00 |
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Entry tags: | !complete, bo dennis, lara croft |
Who: Lara and Bo
What: An argument ensues over Lara's search for immortality after Bo dreams about Lauren's misadventures in finding immortality.
When: Recently
Where: Croft Manor
Warnings: Aside from tempers flaring a bit, pretty low
The past couple dreams had been somewhat tame by Bo’s dream standard. She hadn’t woken up with any injuries, which was a blessing, but she’d felt clouds settling over her in regards to Lauren. At first, she hadn’t known what Lauren was doing, until she took Hale’s grandfather’s power and sang Zeus back into limbo. That had not been something Bo had liked.
And things had only deteriorated from there. Lauren was obviously very into being a conduit, but Bo saw the effects of her serum. Evony, the former Morrigan, was human and she was sick. Dying, technically, from more than one illness. Sure a curse had finally caught up to her, but even so, watching Evony come to terms with mortality had been difficult. (How had Bo come to see Evony as some sort of strange friend after being her steadfast enemy for several years?)
But the dream she’d just had put the nail in the coffin, as it were. Lauren had not known the effects her serum would have on her, but had taken it anyway. When she touched fae to use their powers, she left the fae drained, and they were vulnerable while Lauren was touching them. Bo hadn’t noticed because of her succubus rapid healing power. But Vex and Hale’s grandfather had been left drained after Lauren used their powers. But more than that, Lauren was developing Alzheimer’s at an alarming rate.
After some trials, a literal trial in which Bo had to be a lawyer and win a case to gain an audience with Hephaestus (or Hot-face-tus as she’d addressed him in the dream because damn he was pretty), Bo had come to the decision of being supportive of Lauren’s decision to be fae, or a conduit, even though she’d been very against it at first. However, Lauren had said she’d taken the antidote and broke up with Bo. Bo was left with a broken heart again, and despite the dream ending with her and Dyson being drinking buddies and lamenting their lost loves, she woke up crying.
Bo kept it quiet, but she quickly got up and went to shower, letting herself cry once she was in the shower. At first, it was the broken heart kind of crying, then it eventually became an almost angry kind of crying. She was angry at her dream-self for wanting Lauren and giving her that chance. She was angry at Lauren for doing what she’d done. Then the crying changed to an almost fearful kind of crying as she realized Lara was more or less doing the same thing Lauren had done. And suddenly she needed to talk with her wife.
Finishing her shower, she got dressed and toweled her hair off. She didn’t bother to take the hair dryer to it, talking to Lara was more important than her hair being dry. Sniffing and undoubtedly looking like she’d cried an entire ocean (which she had), she grabbed a box of kleenex as she went in search of her wife, pulling one out to blow her nose.
Bo had also been too emotional to notice the horseshoe made of adamantine sitting on the bedside table.
Lara had tried to not be too preoccupied lately with her work. She knew Bo worried, but she also thought Bo worried needlessly. The more Lara learned, the more she thought she could handle this. That it was something doable.
Immortality, or at least close enough to matter for Bo.
She looked up from a rather enchanted looking dagger. “Morning.”
Sniffing a bit, Bo eyed the dagger. After everything in her dreams, Bo could tell an enchanted-looking weapon when she saw one. She set the box of kleenex aside and tossed her used ones in the garbage bin.
“Morning,” she said, trying not to sound like she’d just been crying for a half an hour straight. She cleared her throat. “What do you have there?”
As if seeing Bo for the first time, Lara blinked her eyes. “... are you all right? Have you been crying? What happened?” She set the knife aside, though conspicuously out of Bo’s reach, then got up.
“Dreams,” she responded with a sniff. Her chest ached from all the crying. She tucked some wet hair behind her ear. “Lauren broke my heart. Again.” Bo was still upset over the whole thing and how it went down, but she was also extremely afraid that something similar could happen here. She was afraid that Lara would lose herself in the quest for immortality and do what Lauren did.
Or worse.
One word stole the air from Lara’s lungs, and she sank down in her chair. Dreams. The cause of most of her problems right now, and there were times she was too emotionally drained for it, simply because it was too much to deal with.
“If I ever meet Lauren, I’m breaking her nose.”
“Her quest for immortality is what eventually pulled her away from me. She wasn’t herself anymore. As in literally. She had Alzheimer’s thanks to what she did to herself. With my father’s fucking help, no less. He helped her develop the serum she used on herself. She wasn’t exactly fae, she was a conduit and basically stole the power of any fae she touched, leaving them vulnerable and drained. And she, well, got Alzheimer’s.” Bo shrugged. She sighed heavily, shoulders slumping as she looked at Lara.
“I’m not going to forget anything, let alone you.” Lara straightened, leaning her hands on her desk. “I’m not doing anything wrong, and I’m not going to lose myself in this. I have a plan.” And in her mind it was better than the backup plan that involved vampires.
Lara got to her feet, “Besides, think of how much goodI could do, for the whole world. Maybe even reduce sickness and suffering.”
She sounded eerily like her dreamself.
“Do you even know what it does? What the potential side effects are? Lauren went into it with the best intentions, wanting us to be together forever, but the cost of her serum was too much.” She took a breath. “I know you want to do good with it, but do you know all of what it can do, both good and bad? Do you know that it will only change your life span and not anything else about you?”
“Whatever the side effects are, they’ll be worth it, and nothing I’ve discovered tells me that there is a negative effect. Naturally, it requires more study, but I’m not trying to genetically engineer myself!” Lara waved her hand dismissively. “Don’t be ridiculous. I’ll be fine, and more importantly I’ll be with you.”
“I’m not being ridiculous! I’ve seen a lot of shit in my dreams, and I know you have as well, of people using things of power like this. It tends to not end well regardless of the intention.” Bo set her hands on the edge of the desk and looked at Lara. “I love you as you are and for who you are. I’ve seen enough to know that I should be scared it could change you in a way neither of us expect.”
“Are you going to try to stop me?” Lara asked, narrowing her eyes. It felt like her heart was in her throat, and she didn’t know what she’d do if Bo said yes.
Bo looked at her. She wanted to say yes, but she remembered the valuable lesson she’d learned in her dreams, that she’d been protecting the people she cared about in the wrong way. She’d chosen to start being supportive, which is why she’d accepted Lauren’s decision only to find out Lauren had taken the antidote and then got her heart broken all over again.
“No, so long as you stop sounding like you did in your dreams when you were looking for the Source.” Because that was not a road Bo was going to just stand by and watch Lara walk down. It wouldn’t lead anywhere good. And she well knew letting Lara use whatever she was hunting down could lead to her getting her heart broken. But that seemed to be the story of Bo’s life in her dreams. It only made sense for the same thing to happen here.
Being immortal really wasn’t all it was cracked up to be.
Lara frowned. For some reason, Bo’s words struck the wrong chord with her, and it only made her dig her heels in. “At worse, it’s pure discovery and knowledge. At best, you won’t be left alone. And I’m not just doing it for you. If I’ve got more time, I can discover more, learn more. More languages, more ruins, more history. There’s too much for only one life time, could you imagine what I could find in ten?”
Lara’s words struck the wrong chord with Bo. It hit on what Hades had told her, that Lauren had wanted the serum more than anything else in the world. Did Lara want this artifact just as badly? Bo wasn’t conceited enough to think Lara was only doing this for her, but she felt it strayed into being something bad when it was wanted more than anything else. “And what happens when you discover everything there is to discover?” It was a fair question because they could live long enough that there’d be nothing left to discover.
“You do know that eventually you’re going to have to fake your death, take on false identities every so often and stay out of the public eye, right?” She did wonder if Lara had actually thought of the long-term ramifications of being immortal. Such as not aging a day beyond her current age. Eventually people would get suspicious if one didn’t age. And eventually, Lara would have to stop using the name Lara Croft on official documents. It was the same for Bo.
“There’d always be something,” Lara replied. “Something long hidden, or something we missed from this era or future eras. And maybe there’s relics on other worlds, other ancient civilizations undiscovered!”
And no, she hadn’t quite thought of all of that. Or at least not entirely. “I’ve been making a list. Pros and cons. We’ll figure it out. I suspect we’ll find places to settle down for awhile, disappear for a decade and resurface somewhere else. I wouldn’t mind living in Paris for awhile.”
Even as Lara used ‘we’ in the discoveries, Bo translated it as meaning ‘Lara.’ After all, Bo wasn’t an archaeologist. She could get into the whole adventurer thing, but researching and discovering things? That was all Lara. And suddenly it hit Bo that she’d need to find something to actually do with her life. She couldn’t be a bartender for all eternity. But at the same time, she didn’t know what her passion was the way Lara did. She liked helping people, but that was as far as she’d gotten.
“So what exactly will the effects of the immortality be? I mean, does it grant you powers? Does it make you invulnerable to anything, including death?” Because that was the catch of Bo’s immortality, she could still be killed. Just short of that, she’d live for millennia.
“I don’t know yet. Imperviousness would be really handy in my line of work but that might also take away some of the thrill of it.” The thrill of being alive. After all, what was the point if you couldn’t die? Ideally, it would be something close to what Bo had, though Lara didn’t actually want any powers. “I don’t want to be perfect, or have any powers. I just want to keep living.”
“And what if it gives you imperviousness and somewhere along the way I get killed? It’ll just be you, then. I may have a healing ability, but I can still die.” Bo didn’t really know what the chances were of her getting killed since she could emergency chi-suck everyone around her. But if she was decapitated, there was no chance of her surviving.
“That’s a bridge I’ll cross if I have to.” Lara folded her arms defensively. “The opposite could happen too, I could still die. But isn’t the chance worth taking? Do you want to be alone?!”
“No, I don’t want to be alone! I just want you to be safe and know exactly how the thing works before using it. I don’t want you to just jump in blind and find out that it does something terrible to you after you’ve used it.” Yet even as Bo said she didn’t want to be alone, it was seeming that she was going to end up alone in her dreams. Everyone was dying or leaving her, and her father was the fabled god of the underworld. It didn’t exactly paint a bright future for her or those she loved.
“I’m going to go in carefully,” Lara promised, but even as she promised she knew that if push came to shove there was a good chance she’d leap and hope there was a ledge to grab onto. It was an attitude that had served her very well in her dream lives, so why not here?
Bo gave Lara a long, hard look. She well knew that her wife tended to leap before she looked, especially when discoveries of long lost treasures were at hand. But she knew that attitude could get her in very deep trouble if she wasn’t careful. And it was one of the similarities to Lauren that Bo wished Lara didn’t have.
“I know your instinct is to jump into it, but in this case, please hold to that promise. I don’t want to see you die or do something stupid like Lauren did.”
“Sometimes, you have to follow your instincts,” Lara said. She picked up the dagger, glancing at it as it whispered something in her mind. Her head twitched, and she moved towards the safe to lock it up. “This thing is part of the backup plan.”
She put it inside and slammed the safe’s door shut.
“And sometimes you need to approach with caution.” Bo was afraid that Lara’s quest for immortality was going to take her away from her one way or another. And she knew she couldn’t handle that. Though at least Hades wasn’t here so he couldn’t poison either of them further.
“What’s the backup plan?” She wasn’t so certain she’d like the backup plan anymore than she liked Lara’s original plan.
“I believe that weapon can destroy certain kinds of artifacts. It can damage or destroy the guardians of some of the tombs I’ve explored.” It was the first time she’d talked about any guardians in the tombs. An oversight, for the most part.
“Wait, guardians? Do you mean things like that contraption made out of gold we encountered in India? Or are you talking supernatural beings?” Both scenarios were not good, and she wondered why Lara hadn’t thought to mention them before. Another thing that grated on her because Lauren hadn’t exactly been forthcoming about what she’d been doing. She’d only told Bo in retrospect. Such as ‘Oh btw Evony’s human now’ and then Evony contracted all those illnesses that were killing her. And it culminated in Lauren chi-sucking Bo to heal herself after getting hit by the car.
Seriously, what was it with her love interests and not sharing information?
“Those, among other things. I’ve struggled to find ways to describe what I’ve seen. It’s something I’m probably going to have to show you, but they never record very well on video.” Lara pulled out a sketch book. “They don’t appear to be strictly … solid. They form wherever you see this black water and resemble corpses. Pale skinned, with sunken in eyes. It’s the eyes and the cracks in their skin that is really alarming. Like staring into the sky at night. You can just fall into them…”
She put the sketch book down. “I didn’t want you worrying much, not until I had a better idea of what I’m dealing with.”
Oh gods, this was really happening, wasn’t it? Her real life was mirroring her dream life in ways she didn’t want it to. She took a breath, listening to Lara’s description of the guardian things. They sounded like ghosts or spectres or something of the sort.
“I would really rather worry than just have things sprung on me, Lara. I’m tired of being kept in the dark about things, both in this life and in my dream life. For once it would be really nice to know about something before someone goes and does it and is just ‘Oh yeah I turned myself fae. Oh and I’ll just keep lying about how I got the serum completed until it accidentally comes out.’”
Lara’s lips thinned out, and she yanked the sketchbook back from her wife. “I also didn’t want you getting your hopes up, if none of this amounted to anything. Be like a nice surprise, ‘happy birthday you get to unwrap me every night for the next thousand years.’”
Bo frowned when Lara yanked the sketchbook away. And the frown only deepened at her response. Mostly because she’d had a shit birthday this year thanks to the dreams. And she’d actually kind of forgotten about her birthday this year because of the whole near-death experience because of the dreams. “And what if you didn’t tell me and then you just disappeared one day while searching for it? I wouldn’t know where to even start looking for you! Or even know if you were dead or alive!”
“That was always a risk, Bo. Whether or not I’m pursuing this, or something else.” It was a danger Lara never downplayed, and one she couldn’t refuse. In many ways, she enjoyed it. She lived for it.
She reached for Bo’s hand. “And I’ve never gone anywhere without telling you or leaving a note about where I’ll be.”
Lara was right, it was always a risk regardless of what she was pursuing. Bo took a breath, and again remembered that lesson from her dreams. Maybe she was doing this all wrong. “I know. I just don’t like being left out of these life-altering choices. It’s not just you anymore, it’s us. Though that would have been the best birthday present.” She didn’t pull her hand away, letting Lara take it.
Bo was also deciding she shouldn’t let her feelings about Lauren get involved in this any further. So she was trying to push all of that aside.
Bo was right, but Lara wasn’t prepared to admit it. She still had a hard enough time with the idea of there being someone for her to come home to - or who could come along with her
The thought of Bo with her was both frightening and fun. “Do you want to come with me, next time?”
“I would, if I wouldn’t get in the way or anything.” Bo wasn’t an adventurer like Lara, but she did try not to touch things she shouldn’t. She didn’t want to go messing anything up for Lara after all of her careful research.
“You wouldn’t get in the way. And maybe you’ll be a good check on me.” Bo could take even more punishment than Lara. A morbid thought, but a necessary one.
“I’m kind of shit at detecting traps, but I can keep you from getting lost in the research.” Which was something that she’d failed at with Lauren. She hadn’t even noticed Lauren working on the serum, otherwise she’d probably have asked things like she’d just done with Lara.
“I’ll hold you to that.. I can’t promise I’ll listen.” But it was the truth, and at least it was the truth.
“And I can’t promise to be gentle about pulling you out of it.” Sometimes one just had to take the rougher course of action to get someone to listen. “I’m sorry about being snappy about this. I want you to be with me forever. I’m just sensitive after seeing so many things go wrong with it in my dreams recently. Considering how this life sometimes mirrors dreams, I’m scared I’ll end up losing you one way or another.”
“We’re not our dreams, and this life isn’t the same. We make the choices and the decisions, good and bad! It’s all on us.” Lara trailed off, and started to let go of Bo’s hands.
Bo gripped Lara’s hands, not letting her let go and to make a point of getting her attention. “No we aren’t. But if we aren’t careful, we will be our dreams.” She knew how Lara could get, she’d seen it in those games and she’d seen a bit of it here. But Bo also knew how she herself could get in the dreams, and right now she could feel herself closing up the way she had in the dreams. She needed to talk about the dreams, but she and Lara weren’t in a position to talk about them without getting upset, and Kenzi was busy with her own things. So Bo was just going to keep it to herself.
“I’m sorry,” Lara whispered. For everything, for making Bo feel like this, for not knowing how to handle any of this. “I’m relationship dumb.”
“So am I.” Which was far more apparent in her dreams since she obviously couldn’t keep a relationship going. She’d lost Dyson because he’d sacrificed his love to save her. She’d lost Lauren twice. She’d dated a guy that had been very bad for her. She’d fucked things up royally with Tamsin. She considered it a miracle that she was married here. Sometimes she did wonder if the other shoe was going to drop, but she was also determined to not make the same mistakes her dream self did. Bo loved Lara and she wasn’t going to lose her if she had any say in the matter.
Lara just hoped they both had a say in the matter.