The Tomb Raider (lara) wrote in valarlogs, @ 2018-03-12 02:46:00 |
|
|||
Entry tags: | !complete, bo dennis, lara croft |
Who: Lara and Bo
What: Bo has a horrible Dream
When: Recent
Where: Croft Manor
Status: Complete
Rating: R for violent situations
The lull in Bo’s dreams had come to a very abrupt, horrific end. After learning that Aife had escaped the institution she’d been in, things had taken so many twists and turns that Bo hadn’t been able to keep up with it all. Aife, Hades and Bo had had one hell of a weird and awkward family dinner. Bach had been playing in the background. And Aife and Hades had told Bo more of the full story behind what had happened to Aife. Hades had rescued Aife from the Dark Dungeons and taken her to Tartarus. Hades had dropped the seed that perhaps Bo had picked the wrong side all along, meaning Trick.
Bo had been so confused and conflicted. Eventually she’d gone and confronted Trick. The last thing she’d said in that conversation had been that she wished she’d never let Trick into her life. All the lies he had told, having kept Bo in the dark, she couldn’t take it anymore. In response, Trick gave Bo a box that contained all of Aife’s files, tapes and medical records. It contained everything that Bo needed to draw her own conclusions and to decide her own truth.
What she saw was heartbreaking, but ultimately proved that Aife wasn’t as crazy as initially believed. Clearly Hades had been going around impersonating Bo, as one clip of the footage showed. It also proved that Trick had been right. So after Dyson, Tamsin and Bo confronting Hades resulted in Dyson being injured, Bo went to find Trick. However, she didn’t find him at the Dal, only footage of Aife in the institution. After not finding Aife at the institution, Bo then went back to Hades’ penthouse. And that’s where she found Aife and Trick’s bodies posed in a family portrait. Aife was already dead, having bled out from a slit throat. Trick was barely alive, his throat also slit. His last words to Bo were that she was his blood, too.
Despite the trauma of the dream, Bo didn’t jerk awake or leap out of bed. She slowly woke up, music catching her attention and slowly bringing her to consciousness. Eyes opening, her gaze fixed on the clock beside the bed. The music was a tune she recognized, mostly from the dream she’d just had, but Lara also had a tendency to listen to classical music as well. She sat up, the music having been Bach that Hades had put on at Aife’s request during that little family get-together. As such, Bo clenched a fist and slammed it down onto the alarm clock, effectively smashing it to pieces, but it silenced the music.
It also hurt Bo’s hand, but she was in shock from her dream to really notice it much. It wasn’t broken, but there was a cut on it. Suddenly, she heard other music coming from downstairs. However, that song hit her more close to the heart, like she’d been shot with an arrow. Sliding out of bed, Bo followed the music, inwardly terrified that she’d find Lara dead downstairs, gift wrapped by Hades for her to find.
She was at least wearing a tank top and underwear so she wasn’t naked in the event there was any company around. However, Bo was totally unaware of the smear of blood on her chest. It wasn’t hers, though. Getting downstairs, Bo followed the music. She wasn’t crying, but the look on her face was almost indescribable. It was probably a look that accompanied someone being in shock after suffering a non-physical trauma.
The dog got up from where she’d been lying and ran to Bo the instant she saw her, however Bo didn’t react to the dog at all.
Lara had perhaps an eccentric playlist. Classical, heavy metal, Metallica, any number of similar musics. She hummed along to Beethoven as she measured one of the crystal skulls, occasionally waving her hand as if conducting. It would have been cute under other circumstances.
She heard Bo approaching, turning around and --- her smile faded. "...Bo?"
Bo was relieved to see that Lara was alive and well. However, the relief didn’t actually make it to her face or body language. “Could you...change the song please?” She asked, lifting her injured hand to point at where the music was coming from. That was when she noticed her hand was bleeding. It wasn’t bleeding badly, but it wasn’t exactly registering that there was pain at all there.
“We also need a new alarm clock.” She spoke so matter-of-factly to the point that it was not normal. Her mind was still trying to process what she’d just dreamed.
Lara stopped her playlist entirely, retrieving a cloth as she got to her feet in order to… dab at the blood, trying to figure out how badly hurt Bo was. She made her sit to tend to her better. Her hand, what looked like her chest. “ Alarm clocks can be replaced. What’s wrong?”
Bo moved where Lara wanted her to, and she sat there a bit blankly while her wife tended to her. At the question, images flashed through Bo’s mind. A family dinner. An argument with Trick. Finding Trick and Aife. Trick dying in her arms. Bo lifted her uninjured arm to touch her chest where Trick had touched her. She felt something sticky there and pulled her hand away to see the blood there. Trick’s blood. She looked down at her chest, and that seemed to break through the shock because when she looked back up at Lara, her eyes were filling with tears.
“He killed them.” She stated, her voice breaking as she admitted it outloud.
Who was he? Who was them? “Kenzi? Dyson? Trick? Tamsin?” Lara tried to remember who else was in Bo’s dreams, who was still alive, who was still with her. She didn’t mention Lauren but then she didn’t much like Lauren. She finished cleaning up Bo and tending to her hand, then knelt next to her.
Bo sniffed as tears started rolling down her cheeks. “Trick and my mom, Aife. Hades killed them and posed them for me to find.” The emotions started flooding in and she started sobbing. It was too much, and Bo felt about as broken as her dream self had.
“He … posed them?” The analytical side of Lara was curious as to how, but it was overruled by the part of her that was utterly horrified. Bo’s sobs only cut through her like a bullet, and she folded her wife into her arms. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
Perhaps the worst part was they could do nothing about it, except to call Trick in this life.
Once she was able to talk, Bo would go into more detail about the dream. All of the head games being played, how her last words to Trick had nearly been words of hate, how she’d found her mother and grandfather. But all she could do right now was to cling to Lara. Bo buried her face in her shoulder and let herself cry it out.
It had been absolutely horrifying to have seen Aife and Trick like that. And she wished that she’d been faster or that she hadn’t argued with Trick. Maybe she could’ve done something to stop them from being killed. Neither of them, for all of their faults, had deserved to die like that.
Lara wanted to tell her that you couldn’t save everyone. But that was hypocritical. She would do anything, literally anything for the people she cared about and she knew Bo was the same way. But that didn’t mean you always succeeded, no matter how good you were or how righteous your cause was.
It made failure all that much worse.
She rocked Bo back and forth, saying nothing and just rubbing her back.
The thing about telling Bo she couldn’t save everyone was that it just made her work that much more to save them. She’d brought Kenzi back from the dead. She felt that she should be able to save others as well. She could revive them by breathing chi into them. So long as they didn’t have a catastrophic wound. Aife and Trick she couldn’t save. Their throats had been slit and they’d bled out. She couldn’t help them.
It was a while before Bo finally started to calm down in Lara’s arms. Her sobbing eventually calmed and she sniffed. “It’s my fault,” she said. “Hades won, turned me against Trick, and I let him do it. If I’d just trusted Trick…” She sniffed again.
Maybe they could drag them out of the underworld. Lara had done that once or twice in her dreams. She was pretty sure at least one version of her was in love with Sara Pezzini, the Witchblade.
“It’s not your fault. You didn’t kill them. It’s not your fault.”
Bo sniffed, knowing Lara was right. “You know the last thing I told Trick before I found him dying? I told him that I wished I’d never let him into my life. Those were almost the last words I ever said to him. I was so angry at him. Which was exactly what Hades wanted. God, I’m such a fucking idiot!”
“Again, that’s Hades. He manipulated you. You can’t blame yourself for that.” But she would and Lara would in her place. It made her words just a little hollow.
“What I do know, is that Trick wouldn’t hold that against you. He loved you.”
That made some fresh tears roll down her cheeks. “He was still alive when I found him. His last words to me were that I was his blood, too. And then he died in my arms.” Bo sniffed again. “That was his blood on my chest.”
Which meant no getting it into anyone’s bloodstream.
At least Lara hadnt had any open cuts. There were things she didn’t want to deal with, and if she were to become immortal she wanted full control of the situation. Or at least as much control as she could have. “I’m so sorry.”
Bo sniffed. “In the dream, at the end of my fight with Trick, he gave me a box that contained files about my mother. Health records, tapes, things like that. I saw some video of her taken while she was in the institution. She wasn’t nearly as crazy as everyone believed she was. Yes, she wanted to kill me, but I think that was because she knew Hades was evil and would use me for his own means. Kind of wish that she had killed me when I was a baby. She’d probably still be alive and Hades would still be trapped in Tartarus.”
“Or he’d have found another way. One thing I’ve discovered, is wishing things were different never really works out. Even with my different versions of myself, a lot of things still happen.” She still ended up alone, pushing away everyone who was close.
“He most likely would have, but it at least wouldn’t be me having the dark side I can’t control and people around me dying. Death is my birthright, both literally and figuratively.” Her father was the Greek god of the underworld, even if he wasn’t actually a god. And a succubus could easily kill. Her dream self had left quite the trail of bodies behind her. Death surrounded her, and right now she felt like it would follow her into this life.
“Then I suppose we’re well matched.” The seriousness in Lara’s tone spoke volumes. Bo might be the daughter of Hades, but Lara felt as though she herself were somehow related herself. Or perhaps to Ares, instead.
Bo took in a slow breath. She understood what Lara’s tone meant, but she was definitely in no condition to refute it. Not after what she’d dreamed. Instead, she just wrapped her arms around Lara again, holding her close as she laid her head on her shoulder, needing and wanting comfort. “He posed them like a portrait, knowing I’d find them.”
“They’d have been targets regardless, but he knew doing that would get to you. You can’t let yourself think about it. You have to think about them as you remember them, as they were, not how that bastard wants you to remember them.”
Hades reminded her of a more sane Mathias. It was a terrifying thought.
“I’ll try, but it’s going to be hard for a while. I didn’t even react when Dyson came in right before I woke up. I was too traumatized.” Bo didn’t want to admit it, but Hades had struck a nearly decisive blow to her. Her spirit was definitely cracked, and she could feel herself nearing the breaking point for what she could take.
“He also had music playing when I walked in. The song you were listening to was the one that was playing.” Bo never, ever wanted to hear that song ever again. It would always take her back to that moment of finding her mother and grandfather dead. “The alarm clock died because it was playing another song that Hades played during a family dinner earlier on.”
Bo was probably just going to avoid classical music in general for a very long while since Hades seemed to be so fond of it.
Lara nodded, getting the hint. She’d remove both from her playlist and slant it heavily towards the progrock section, rather than classical.
If she was honest with herself it suited her own mood better anyway. “All this can wait. Lets go for a nice long drive out of town.”
“Okay. Let me put some pants on first.” Bo didn’t have any intention of getting dressed beyond that. The tanktop she’d slept in was staying on, and she was basically going to pull on whatever pair of pants was closest when she got back upstairs.
“Your car, or mine?” Lara asked, picking up the skull to put it in the safe. Always in the safe. It was too dangerous to leave unattended.
“Yours. I’d probably just get us into a crash right now.” And Bo had no intention of getting in a car accident. Her dream had been bad enough.
“Who said you’d be driving it,” Lara teased. She grabbed her keys, then pulled a beer out of the fridge for Bo. Lara wouldn’t drink herself, but she figured Bo could stand to have something a to calm her nerves right now.
Bo just nodded a bit, not in the mood to respond to teasing. She headed upstairs and pulled on a pair of pants. She put her hair into a ponytail, but didn’t bother with make-up. Not even the eye liner she always wore. Right now, she didn’t care. As she went to head back downstairs, she glanced at the smashed alarm clock. She glanced down at her hand. The cut there had at least stopped bleeding.
Then something else caught her attention. She stepped closer to the bedside table where a couple CDs and old film reels were sitting. Bo didn’t need to examine them to determine just what they were. They were the videos of Aife while she’d been in the institution. She picked them up and headed back downstairs to join Lara.
“Seems my dream left me some gifts here.” She set them on the kitchen counter and turned away, not really wanting to deal with them now. “Tapes of my mother from the institution.”
“... yes, lets worry about that later,” Lara agreed. She took Bo’s hand and guided her towards the garage. “You’re in charge of the playlist for the drive. I’ll find us a nice quiet place away from everything.”
Bo followed Lara out to the garage. “Okay, thank you.” She definitely could use being away from everything for a while. Part of her just wanted to go back to bed, but she was afraid of what she’d dream of next. Who would Hades kill next? It was probably a good thing that Kenzi had left again, she didn’t need to be around when her asshole of a father was going around killing people Bo loved. And Kenzi dying again would be the very last straw.
And for once, Bo felt like some rock, or maybe some Metallica. Which would undoubtedly tip Lara off to her mood given she was the pop music princess and her collection tended to mostly consist of 80s and 90s pop music.
It was going to be a long drive, and Lara didn’t know how to fill the silence. She wasn’t Sam, she acted more than she spoke, but she did keep her hand on Bo’s leg, or otherwise keep some kind of contact, just to remind her she was near. It was the best she could do.
Eventually, after many hours, she found a winding road that led up into the Sierra’s.
Bo didn’t mind the silence. She wasn’t exactly in a talkative mood at the moment. But she was grateful for Lara keeping physical contact with her. She set her hand over Lara’s, and eventually threaded their fingers together as she watched the scenery go by.
Once Lara got on a road that led up into the Sierras, Bo perked up a little. “The mountains are always so pretty.”
Good, that was what Lara was hoping for. To get Bo to relax and even per up a bit. “I like them with the snow. Something good out this winter, at least.”
It was picturesque, and after a few more minutes Lara pulled off road, putting the land rover into four wheel drive as it dug into the snow.
“Snow has a way of making everything prettier. Even if we’re stuck in it.” It was a half-hearted attempt at something light-hearted, but they did have a knack for getting trapped in the Christmas blizzards that tended to happen in Orange County.
Though right now? Bo would be happy to be stuck in the snow with Lara. At least they’d be together and away from everything else.
“If we get stuck in this, I’m suing.” Lara patted the steering wheel. The Rover wasn’t the Mako but it was still designed for terrain like this, or worse. Even if it did slip and slide a bit on the snowy trail. “Though I think I missed the road I wanted to take.”
“Missed road or not, it’s still an adventure and time spent with you.” Bo looked at Lara, a little smile on her face. Lara always made her feel better when bad things happened. Of course, this time would take longer than just a couple hours together to heal. But it meant the world to Bo that Lara dropped what she was working on to spend this time with her.
There’d been times in recent past where Lara might have hesitated, or even not made the offer. When she’d been a little more obsessed with her work. But she’d also learned that half the reason she sought immortality was to be with Bo, and if she threw what she had away, then what was the point?
Bo deserved the world. “Even if all we’re doing is staring at snow and passing trees?”
Under less dire circumstances, Bo wouldn’t have held it against Lara if she hadn’t made the offer or anything. But given the fact her mother and grandfather had been murdered by her father and specifically posed for her to find, this was definitely a time that she needed her wife.
“Yes, even if we’re just staring at snow and passing trees. We’re together, and that’s what matters. And I need you.” Those four words nearly made her voice crack with emotion again. She didn’t have the words to describe what she was feeling, but she figured ‘I need you’ was enough to get the point across.
Lara brought the vehicle to a stop, though it took more effort than she was comfortable with. She made a mental note to buy new tires soon. But once they were stopped, Lara turned and cupped Bo’s cheek. “I’m always here for you, Bo. Even if it seems like I might not be, you only need to tap me on the shoulder.”
Bo leaned into Lara’s hand. “I love you.” She turned her head and kissed the palm of Lara’s hand. “I wouldn’t trade you for anything.” And she certainly meant it. There was nothing that would make her give up Lara. Once Bo had set her heart on something, she stuck with it through thick and thin.
Lara hoped that question would never come up for herself. Because there was something she’d trade Bo for. If forced to choose between Bo dying, or losing Bo’s love, she knew exactly what she’d choose. And based on both of their dreams such a choice had a higher than 0 probability of happening.
But she kept that thought to herself and leaned into kiss her wife.
Bo also hoped that such a situation never came up. She liked actually being happy in one of her lives, instead of always having her heart broken. Sometimes she looked at her dream self and wished she’d just stop falling in love and giving assholes like Lauren multiple chances to break her heart.
She returned the kiss, lifting a hand and cupping Lara’s cheek.
“Let’s stay out here tonight,” Lara suggested, once she’d come up for air. “I’ve got blankets in the back, a fire kit. I could hunt us a rabbit if we’re hungry.”
Truly, she said the most romantic things.
“I like the sound of that.” Luckily Lara was always prepared. Of course, the addition of blankets and such could partially be due to when they got snowed into the car two Christmases ago. But even so, Bo liked the idea of just being away from everything. It may not keep her from dreaming again, but at least she had Lara.