InsaneJournal

Who: Lara and Bo
What: Dealing with Dark Bo fallout and cleansing evil wounds
When: recent
Where: Croft Manor
Status: Complete
Rating: PG-13



Bo had tried to put off the conversation with Lara that she knew they really needed to have. But after striking a deal with Logan about work, it had been on her mind a hell of a lot more. She’d been in the bathroom, daring to look at the wound. It wasn’t infected, Bo made very certain to keep it clean. But it still made her blood run cold when she looked at it. It seemed to have stopped seeping for the time being, so Bo didn’t fuss with it too much, just giving it another dose of disinfectant before she placed a clean bandage over it and pulled her shirt back on.

Now, she decided she should try to breach the subject with Lara. Waiting any longer would only make the conversation that much worse. Not that it wouldn’t be bad now, but it would be even worse if they continued to wait. And Bo wasn’t certain how much longer she could try to pretend it didn’t hurt as much as it actually did.

So she went to find her wife. When her office was empty, Bo headed to the gym, where she heard her wife working out before she got to the door. It was going to take some intense self-control to keep from jumping Lara the instant she saw her muscles, but Bo knew she had to keep her succubus in check. Even if they didn’t need to have a serious conversation, sex was out of the question because of her wound.

Taking a breath and stepping into the doorway, she gave a little knock. “Am I interrupting?”

Lara had been dreading the conversation herself. She didn’t want to think about that knife, or the events of that day. She’d killed Bo, she’d killed her wife and the less she thought about it the better.

Even if it meant avoiding her some days. Like today.

At least in the gym she had a good excuse. Clad in a sports bra and shorts, she was in the middle of chin ups when Bo came in. She dropped to the ground and picked up a towel. “Uhm. No, not really.”

Bo could be so distracted by Lara’s muscles. And her eye was drawn to them as she was doing chin ups. Her eyes flashed blue before she blinked and shook her head to clear it. Now was not the time to engage in such activity, even if she was physically fit enough to do so. She was extremely sexually frustrated, but she wasn’t going to risk ripping the wound open again. Not now.

“I uh...we should talk. About what happened.”

Lara could probably easily distract Bo from that talk. Dump some water over her body to wipe down, suggest a shower. But that wasn’t fair and was also copping out a little bit. So she just wiped down with the towel and nodded. “That would be the mature thing to do.”

That was definitely very unfair if Lara did anything to distract her. But she had a questioning that was burning her mind, and she needed an answer to it, even if she didn’t really want to hear it. “The wound isn’t really healing at all. Not beyond the initial healing.” Bo pressed her lips together for a few moments, not particularly wanting to ask the question, but knowing she needed to if they were to find a solution. “What did you stab me with?”

Because whatever it was obviously wasn’t a normal dagger. It was powerful enough that it kept Bo’s healing power from properly working.

Frowning, Lara walked past Bo and gestured for her to follow her. “It’s Greek. At least that’s what I thought at first, but it’s much older than that.”

In the office, she made her way to one of the safes and opened it. She unwrapped the dagger and set it on her desk. “It’s not from my dreams, or yours. Though I wouldn’t be surprised if it was influenced by whatever cracks in reality causes them.”

Bo followed after Lara, watching as she retrieved the dagger from the safe. She stepped closer to the desk when Lara unwrapped it. It gave her the creeps to look at it, and there was a moment where she felt that the blade was still inside her chest. She pressed a hand over the wound. Her shoulders hunched a little and her teeth clenched as she felt a pang of pain radiate through her.

“That thing seems to be very powerful. And really creepy. Where did you find it?”

“Remember that island I bought?” Lara asked, the words a little sheepish but her tone serious. “There’s a temple underneath it. I think it’s related to Atlantis. This dagger proved to be very effective against these … creatures of shadow, I guess you’d call them. But it also feels like it relishes drawing blood.”

Bo looked at Lara, then back to the dagger. “Atlantis. It makes sense.” She frowned a little, clenching her teeth a little tighter. “Whatever it is, it’s powerful.” Bo took a step back from it, almost thinking the thing was taunting and laughing at her. “And it’s keeping my healing ability from actually working.”

It was similar to when she’d been shot with the arrow that had the thing that kept her from healing. At least this dagger wasn’t sadistic enough to keep ripping the wound open again right after Bo managed to heal it with chi.

“That’s possible,” Lara mused. She picked it up again, rubbing her finger along the flat of the blade. “But what if it’s something else? Those creatures...the shadow people. It’s like it absorbs them.”

Which might explain how creepy the blade got at times. She held the dagger up towards Bo’s chest, and it was like darkness in the wound was trying to leap out to the blade.

“Absorbs them?” Bo was a little confused, but anything else she might’ve asked about was cut off when Lara held the dagger up towards her chest. At first, she briefly thought Lara might stab her again. But then her chest started to hurt and she grunted, pressing a hand over the wound. “Is it trying to take my soul? Fuck,” she grunted out.

“I don’t…” Lara moved the dagger away from Bo, and undid her bandage. There was inky blackness around the edge of the wound that seemed to be leaking out.

Bo looked down at the wound and shuddered. “What the fuck? I just changed the bandage and it wasn’t seeping at all.” She glanced at the dagger. Clearly proximity was enough to set it off. Bo winced a bit. “Fuck, it hurts.”

“Bo, do you trust me?” Lara looked at the wound, then into Bo’s eyes.

What kind of question was that? Bo did trust Lara, but that was the kind of question someone asked before they did something reckless and most likely life-threatening. Was Lara going to stab her again for science? Or was she going to bleed her or something?

“Yes, I trust you.” She answered, despite being wary of what Lara was about to do.

“This will probably hurt,” Lara said, lifting the knife up and pressing the flat of the blade against the wound. Like an infection being drained out, the blackness bled into the metal.

That was definitely better than getting stabbed again. But Lara was right, it hurt. Bo cried out before she clamped a hand over her mouth and clenched her teeth. She needed to hold onto something, but she knew whatever she grabbed was going to get broken. She made some muffled grunts and other sounds of pain as whatever was being pulled out of her.

It was too long, she felt, but Lara didn’t want to have to do this again. Just about when she thought she couldn’t take Bo’s sounds any more, she pulled the knife away. A few stray tendrils of pure evil followed it. What was left of Bo’s wound was a scar, but it was a clean scar.

It was nearly impossible to describe how the pain felt. It felt vaguely similar to being on fire, or whatever was being pulled out of her was clawing to stay inside. Bo had a high threshold for pain, but this pushed her to the limit, and a little further. When Lara pulled the dagger away, Bo wobbled on her feet for a moment before her eyes rolled up into her head and she fainted dead away.

Lara was quick to catch Bo before she hit her head, the dagger clattering to the floor. While she didn’t have Bo’s incredible strength, she was no slouch, picking Bo up and carrying her out to the couch. She tended to the wound, though it really didn’t need it. She wondered if the scar would ever actually heal over.

She was only unconscious for a couple minutes at most before she regained consciousness. Bo was a little confused because she definitely hadn’t been on the couch. “What the...what happened?” She sat up, momentarily forgetting about her wound.

“I think the dagger cleansed whatever darkness had been left over from you losing control,” Lara explained. She was leaning over Bo concernedly, brushing the hair from her eyes. “How do you feel?”

Bo fully sat up, looking down at the wound. She gingerly touched around it. It seemed to be healed, at least on the outside. Or at least closed to where it wouldn’t seep anymore. “I...feel weird, I guess?” She looked back at Lara. “You think it actually cleansed me of my dark side?”

“I don’t know. It might have, but I don’t think we have any way of testing it.” Lara gingerly picked up the blade, but it was no longer reacting to Bo’s wound. “Except I don’t think it cares about you anymore. Does it hurt when it’s near still?”

“I suppose the only real test would be to see if my dark side ever takes over again.” Bo couldn’t just will it to take over and she couldn’t control it. All she could do was just wait and see if it decided to take control again. Bo looked down at the dagger, then looked at the wound. “No, not really. Though while it may have closed the wound, I don’t think it’s healed all the way through.” At least, that’s not how her healing power worked. She needed chi in order to heal, she didn’t do it automatically.

“Lets not do that,” Lara suggested. She put the dagger back down, then cupped Bo’s face to kiss her. “Take my chi.”

“Yeah, I’d rather avoid that myself.” Not that she could actually do anything about it regardless, but Bo would rather not have a repeat of what happened a month earlier. She leaned in and kissed Lara, letting the kiss linger a bit before she took a hit of chi. It was a slightly longer hit than usual. Her eyes were blue as she took the chi, then she sat back a little as the wound healed internally. It wasn’t completely there, but it was worlds better than it had been. Though the scar didn’t budge at all.

Bo looked down at it and frowned slightly. “Well. Guess that’s not going to go away.” She didn’t get scars, so this was...a little upsetting in more than one way. Though she supposed that since she’d technically died she should have a mark to show that struggle.

Lara closed her eyes, mouth hanging open as Bo sucked her life force. It made her dizzy, but she usually liked it when Bo did this. Usually. She still had flashbacks to how much it had hurt while Bo was dark.

She didn’t deserve Bo. “That… I can’t explain.”

“Guess it’s just something about the dagger. Or maybe it’s me. The dagger did suck out part of me.” Maybe it had sucked out part of her soul, and the scar was some sort of mark that she wasn’t whole anymore? She didn’t know and she didn’t bother to think too much on it. Bo didn’t really want to, even though she was thinking her mother had been right, that she was a demon after all. If she wasn’t, then why had the dagger reacted to her before, but not now?

“Your dark side. Perhaps it was like excising a cancer,” Lara suggested, very careful of her choice of words. “Everyone has their dark moments but that part of you, that … whatever that was. That wasn’t you. That was like some kind of disease, and we’ve healed you.”

“The Pyrippus. Hades put it in me after I was born.” Bo rubbed her forehead a bit. She hadn’t actually talked about her last dream, about the confrontation with Hades and how horribly everything had gone. “We all thought the Pyrippus was a horse because in all the drawings, paintings and writings about it, it’s referred to as the Hell Horse. But I learned that the Pyrippus was actually me, that Hades had put it in me after I was born. It was a tool that Hades used in order to raise his army and make the world in his image.”

Then that definitely wasn’t Bo. Lara could see that as clearly as the color of Bo’s eyes. “You’re not the Pyrippus. You were used. Abused. Hades infected you with that darkness, it has nothing to do with either your human side, or your Fae side.”

She pointed at the dagger, “And now that infection is gone.”

“Hopefully it doesn’t come back to bite me in the ass later,” she commented, looking at the dagger. Bo really hoped the thing held onto the Pyrippus. She really didn’t want it getting free again. And in the trauma of the whole dying thing, Bo hadn’t actually dealt with things that had happened in her last dream. Tamsin dying. Her half-sister being raised by Kenzi. Getting back together with Lauren again.

“It just might do so in my dreams. I defeated Hades, though not forever. He will come back one day. And the fight...came at a cost.” There’d been fewer deaths than Bo might have expected in that last confrontation, but of all the people who might’ve died, Tamsin had not been her pick to die. Bo would’ve put money on herself being the one to die.

“I’m reluctant to part with it, but perhaps we should ask the Agency to lock it away. Or at least do some kind of protection spell on my safes.” Lara looked in the direction of the library then back towards Bo.

These things always came with a cost. “I wish things would stop having a bloody cost.”

“I’d say do what you think is best.” It would probably be a good idea to learn as much as they could about the dagger regardless of whether it stayed here or went to the Agency. Would the dagger hold evil forever? Or could it somehow escape?

“Yeah, me too. But all we can do now is ensure that whatever’s all in that dagger now never gets out and to ensure that the dagger itself never falls into the wrong hands.”

Lara wondered what wrong hands even meant. The dagger had relished being used, and a part of her had as well. It wasn’t the first time she’d felt that way, and it wouldn’t be the last.

Maybe they’d vanquished Bo’s monster, but Lara’s still existed. “Can you ever forgive me?”

Vanquishing a monster was one thing. Getting over the damage it had caused was very much another. Not to mention in Bo’s case, there was more damage done in her dreams, more of a trail of death that had been left behind her.

“There’s nothing to forgive, Lara,” she said gently, looking at her wife as she reached for her hands. “You did what I’d asked, you stopped me from hurting innocent people. I think the more poignant thing is that you need to forgive yourself. Yes, you stabbed me, but I’m still here, and I’m alive. You didn’t lose me.”

“What I can’t forgive myself for is how easy that was,” Lara admitted, tiredness in her voice and a shadow in her eyes. “It shouldn’t be easy. It wasn’t supposed to be easy. But when the time came, I acted.”

Bo frowned a little, studying Lara’s face a bit. “No, it shouldn’t be easy, but it’s not your fault either. You have those tendencies because if you didn’t have them in your dreams, you would be dead. It doesn’t make you a bad person, and even if you feel otherwise, you are not bad. You don’t hurt innocent people, Lara. Hurting innocent people for fun and because they can is what bad people do. And honestly, you wouldn’t feel this way at all if you were.”

“What’s the point of surviving if you don’t have something to live for?” Lara asked, turning her face away from Bo. “And yes, there’s work, there’s study and learning, but you’re supposed to be there. At my side or here when I come home or at the bar yelling at Logan. You’re supposed to be here.”

“I am here. It’s not your fault that you stabbed me, you were protecting the world from me. It’s not even my fault because I can’t control who my parents are. If you want to blame someone in this, blame Hades for making me that way. Blame him for using me as a means to his ends. Yet even with that, I’m fairly certain that if he hadn’t been my father in my dream life, that I wouldn’t even be here now. We never would have met because I never would’ve had another life to dream of. No, it’s not fair to have put you through the agony you’ve been through, and I wish I could change it so you didn’t have to suffer. But we’re both here, and we’re both alive, and god damn it I love you more than anything. I’m not going to let you go through this alone because you aren’t alone.” Bo was getting emotional now, partly due to the emotions of her dreams and Lara stabbing her, but also partly because of the toll everything had taken on her wife.

“I’m sorry that I put you through that, and I really wish it hadn’t come to that. You didn’t deserve it.”

Which was worse? The one who was born to monsters, or the one who’d become a monster? Maybe there was some poetic justice in the two of them being together. But all Lara could think about was Bo’s blood on her hands. Some nights, she washed them raw.

She hadn’t done that since the first dreams. Since before they’d met.

“I just want you to not have to suffer.”

“And I don’t want you to suffer either. I want to help you work through this.” Whatever else that was on Bo’s mind didn’t matter. Lara took precedence to the losses suffered in her dreams, or the fact she had a half-sister in them. Which honestly made her wonder if she had a half-sister in this world somewhere, but none of that mattered right now.

Lara mattered. Especially since Bo wasn’t side-lined by pain and a wound that refused to heal anymore.

The way things went, Bo’s suffering might end and Lara’s might return. She’d already had one new dream she hadn’t told Bo about. She hadn’t wanted to add even more pressure to her.

“I still.. Feel it. The blood. The knife.”

There would always be suffering, and it wasn’t always dream-induced either. How many times had Orange County happenings made them both suffer just as much, if not more, than their dreams had? Though in retrospect, Bo knew her dreams had been a lot to handle, and perhaps it hadn’t been fair to Lara to dump it all on her. But that was going to change now. Bo hadn’t dreamt anything more since she’d defeated Hades, but she well knew that she could could continue dreaming. She was still alive, and Hades would come back at some point. Dagny’s existence proved that.

But that was a worry she’d keep to herself. And a worry that would propel her to find out if she had a half-sister somewhere in the world.

“I understand what you mean. I still feel the knife sometimes, too. Unless you mean feel the knife like you’re connected to it somehow?” Which if that was the case, then Bo would be more in favor of the Agency locking it away for Lara’s own good.

“Just memories.” Lara shook her head, pulling away from Bo and hugging herself. If she let herself think about this for much longer she was going to lose it and she didn’t want to lose it on Bo. But she didn’t want to be… poisoned, for lack of a better word.

When Lara pulled away from her, Bo looked down at her hands before she pulled them back into her lap. “I wish I could ease your memories.” Short of taking the memories away, there wasn’t really a good way to make the memories go away or ease, except for time. And even then, memories could still be potent decades later.

“Would that make things better? Or worse? There’s always a cost with that sort of thing.” Lara turned, leaning against the wall and looking at Bo again. “I’d rather just… work through it.”

Wasn’t that what easing the memories meant? To help Lara work through them? But Bo nodded a bit, taking that response as Lara wanting to work through it on her own. “Of course. If there’s something I can do to help that, just let me know, and I’ll do it.”

Lara took a deep breath, and then another, dropping her hands to her sides before coming over to Bo. “I just… “

Okay, she could do this, and she knew she needed to say it. “You’ve been through so much, and there were times when I could barely handle it myself. And now I have to carry the weight of knowing I killed you. You’re alive, you’re here, but that… I’m not going to be able to forget that quickly.”

Sometimes Bo thought that Lara deserved someone who didn’t have fucked up dreams like she herself did. This was one of those times. But she didn’t voice it, she just kept it to herself, knowing Lara needed to say it. It was also one of the reasons she was choosing to not talk about Tamsin or Dagny or the stupidity of her dream self going back to Lauren or the fact she and Kenzi remained apart after all was said and done.

“I know. It’s not going to be easy.” Lara had to live with knowing she’d killed Bo. Bo had to live knowing Lara had killed her, but she didn’t even have a memory of it. She’d just come to with the knife already in her and her life draining away. She had no knowledge of what had led up to that moment, and she wasn’t sure if that made things better or worse for her.

“And none of that is your fault.” Lara took Bo’s hands. “And it’s not my fault. It just is. That doesn’t make it at all easy. It makes it harder. But I’m not willing to let it damage us.”

Bo had said as much earlier in the conversation and she nodded, squeezing Lara’s hands. “I’m not willing to let it damage us either. I’m here for you and with you.” She had a lot of making up to do, trying to lessen the burden she’d put on Lara.

“God, I don’t deserve you.” Lara leaned in until there was no sunlight between them. “I love you.”

“We don’t deserve the shit that’s been dealt to us, that’s what we don’t deserve.” Bo wrapped her arms around Lara, holding her close and tight. “I love you, too.”