InsaneJournal

Who: Lara and Bo
What: Emotional Discussions
When: Early September
Where: Croft Manor
Status: Complete
Rating: PG



There had been a couple things from the last of Bo’s dreams that she hadn’t yet given voice to. And they were things that she’d need to talk about eventually. Especially regarding Tamsin, lest her emotions over the events lead to her suffering from succubus impotence again. Though it wasn’t that bad yet, but Bo knew she needed to talk to someone about it.

Caroline’s post on the network had been the closest she’d come to talking about some of it. And, well, it brought the Lauren Crap back to the front of her mind, which was where she would start in talking to Lara. After sitting and reflecting over how her dream self had gone back to Lauren again, and somewhat stewing over it, for a bit, Bo finally got up and went to find her wife.

Sometimes she really did want to punch her dream self. She just hoped that Lara was in a mindset to talk. Tough if she wasn’t she wouldn’t force the conversation. She’d push it aside and wait for another time. After all, she knew Lara was dreaming again. She’d rather focus on that than on her own dream crap.

Lara’s dreams had left her shaken, though she hid it masterfully. Seeing her father again, alive, had not been something she’d ever expected, so naturally she buried it.

Stepping out of the shower, she wrapped a towel around herself and made her way into the bedroom to dress.

It took quite a bit of willpower to resist getting a glass of wine, or something stronger, when she passed through the kitchen, but she managed to settle for a chocolate bar. She’d already eaten half of it by the time she got up to their bedroom where she found her towel-clad wife.

“Hey,” she greeted.

“Hey.” Lara smiled at her, pulling the towel off and throwing it at Bo’s head, her grin turning playful. She was pulling her trousers and shorts on right after that, though remained topless. “You all right?”

Seeing Lara’s smile made her heart flutter a bit. She let the towel hit her head, just taking a moment to take it in. She took the towel off and looked at her wife. “God, I love you,” she said. And it wasn’t even in response to her wife being topless. There was more emotion behind it.

Apparently Bo was more sensitive to her dream self’s love life than she realized.

“I don’t know, I’ve just been thinking. There was a post on the network that got me thinking about things in my dreams.” She didn’t know if Lara had seen the post, or seen Bo’s comments on it. But the fact she hadn’t really talked to Lara about what had happened in her dreams aside from her mother and grandfather being killed and her going completely Dark Side had made her not say certain details on a public post. She wanted Lara to hear those details from her mouth first, not read it on some computer screen.

Lara chuckled, reaching for a tank top and forgoing a bra. She wasn’t planning on going out so it wasn’t necessary. Turning towards Bo in full, she waited for her to talk, then sat on the bed and patted the spot next to her. “Take your time.”

Bo would’ve told Lara to leave the tank top off, but she would’ve been distracted by her wife’s skin. She took a breath and went to sit beside her on the bed, taking a bite of her chocolate bar as she tried to figure out where to start.

“I want to strangle myself in the dreams,” she finally said. But then she frowned a bit. “No, I wish I’d died when fighting with Hades. It would’ve stopped me from getting back together with Lauren. Again. Despite her having broken my heart twice, and all the other shit she pulled. I just can’t believe that dream!me would put herself through that yet again.” She let out a frustrated sigh and took another bite of chocolate.

Oh, the chocolate should have been a clue. Lara leaned her shoulder against Bo’s, listening intently. She frowned at the Lauren thing. Lara really would hit Lauren if they ever met. She wouldn’t even give her a chance, she’d just deck her.

“When you… love someone strongly enough, you don’t always make good decisions. Especially when lonely and vulnerable.”

Bo had quite a few choice things she wanted to tell Lauren if she ever showed up here. After she dreamed of certain things, obviously, otherwise it wouldn’t make sense. But at least in this life, Bo had an amazing wife who would never do to her what Lauren had done.

“I know. I just wish she would’ve been stronger and learned from history.” Bo sighed again and looked at Lara. “I’m just glad I have an amazing and wonderful wife in this life who would never do any of what Lauren did to me.” She took Lara’s hand in her own and held it.

Lara squeezed her hand back. If she ever did do something awful, she knew she wouldn’t be in her right mind; or was doing the protect Bo by pushing her away thing.

“You deserve everything. You’re just so kind.”

She really seriously hoped Lara would never do anything like that. Bo knew how that would end up, and it wouldn’t be pretty.

“What can I say, I’m a bleeding heart hero type.” Bo trusted people far too quickly and too easily, and she tended to get burned really badly because of it. Lauren being one case in point. “Still, I wish I would’ve gone for Tamsin instead of being an idiot and breaking her heart.” But Tamsin was a very loaded topic. “Though it wouldn’t have worked in the long run because she...died.” There had been so much death swirling around her in her last few dreams that trying to process it all was nearly impossible. She’d barely tried to process her grief for her mother and Trick. Her grief over Tamsin had been locked away and ignored. Until now. She felt some tears welling up in her eyes and her throat got a little tight.

“One of us has to be that kind of hero,” Lara agreed. She didn’t think that was her; her dark side was as deep as Bo’s and she didn’t have the excuse of magic.

She straightened, turning towards Bo and wiping some hair from her face. “Tamsin died?”

“True, but it would be better if I didn’t trust everyone so easily. I tend to get needlessly hurt or screwed over because of that.” Though Bo thought that all the crap with Hades might’ve actually hardened her a little. But she couldn’t quite be certain about that, not without having more dreams. And she had a feeling that her dreams were done.

“Yeah…” She said with a nod. She pressed her lips together. “Apparently if a Valkyrie gets pregnant, they die after giving birth. Sort of a whole, life comes from death or some shit.” Bo looked at Lara, pain in her eyes. “She didn’t even get to die in battle. She died giving birth to my...half-sister.”

And there was that bombshell secret that Bo had also been keeping.

“That’s bullshit, she’s not a Phoenix!” Lara felt enraged. What kind of absolute bullshit was it that a woman died in birth, for that to be in their nature? She almost missed the rest of it, doing a double take

“I’m sorry, did you say half-sister?”

And knowing what she knew of Bo’s conception, that rage hardened into a cool, deadly anger.

“It’s something having to do with giving life requires a death or something. I don’t know, I’m not a Valkyrie so I don’t get it, but it is definitely bullshit.” Tamsin deserved to die on the battlefield like the warrior she was, not by giving birth.

“Yes, I did.” Bo nodded. “But before you jump to conclusions, Hades didn’t do to Tamsin what he did to my mother. I made sure of that.” After all, she’d given Tamsin the key to getting out of the cage and everything. “But you know how in mythology Zeus can take any form he wants? Well, the same is true of Zeus in my dreams. Hades wanted to learn that ability, and Zeus taught him, only there was a catch. Hades could only take the form of those he shared blood with.”

Bo took a breath. “It happened right after Lauren broke up with me the second time. Like the stupid, naive person I am, I went running to Hades to cry on his shoulder like most daughters would do when going to their fathers for comfort. He took it as an opening and took my form to sleep with Tamsin. She thought it was actually me until after she was talking about it and I’d said I never did that. Then Lauren discovered she was pregnant. So yeah. In my dreams, Tamsin is Dagny’s mother.”

There was a hope in Bo’s mind that if Dagny existed in this life, maybe Tamsin did too. And Bo really hoped that Tamsin did so she could get a better life here. She deserved it.

“That’s not much better,” Lara pointed out coldly. There was a dark pit somewhere with Hades’ name on it. She wet her lips and forced herself to calm down; it was just when anything about Bo’s father came up, she went straight to murder.

“And you’re afraid she exists here?”

Considering how Bo came into the world, going straight to murder whenever her father came up was the only response. It was just that right now, Bo had way more emotions tied up in it to be angry and wanting to murder Hades.

“On the contrary, I hope she exists here so that she has a chance to have a better life here. And I know how it sounds given my relationship to Tamsin in the dreams, but she deserves so much better than what she got. And much better than what I did to her.” She felt so guilty about having been blind to Tamsin’s real feelings for her and how she’d broken her heart. Tamsin deserved better, and Bo wanted to see her be happy with someone who could love her back.

“Bo, none of that was your fault. You didn’t do anything to her. Your father took advantage of her and of you both.” Lara wasn’t going to let Bo blame herself for this, though it wasn’t lost on her that they both had issues with self blame.

“And considering what we know of him here, I wouldn’t put it past him to have a tight leash on her here too.”

“But part of it is my fault. I was the one who was blind to Tamsin’s feelings for me because I was too hung up on Lauren to bother to see Tamsin’s aura, to actually taste her chi. I led her on, and then I broke her heart and nearly lost her as a friend because of it. I set her up to be in a vulnerable position when Hades used my form to get her into bed.” Bo ran a hand over her face. “It was Hades’ fault for even doing that in the first place, but I had my part in it by helping to put Tamsin in that position.”

Lara may have been determined to keep Bo from blaming herself for what had happened to Tamsin, but Bo well knew she wasn’t innocent in it. She’d been willfully blind. Perhaps if she had recognized Tamsin’s feelings and broken things off far earlier, she would’ve had more resistance to Hades.

“If both Tamsin and Dagny exist in this world, they most likely aren’t related. Unless Tamsin is older than me or something. But I would hope that Hades doesn’t have a hold of either of them in this life. But I’m probably just deluding myself.” She stood up, letting out a frustrated sigh as she shoved the rest of the chocolate bar in her mouth and crumpled the wrapper up in her hand.

“Hades would have done that even if you’d known,” Lara pointed out. “Even if you hadn’t reciprocated I doubt she’d have been able to resist the temptation of you apparently changing your mind. You’re not an accessory to her rape.” Lara leaned over, cupping Bo’s face. “I know I wouldn’t have been able to resist you.”

“Obviously. But if I’d recognized things and broken it off way earlier and in a gentler way than I actually did, she could’ve had time to heal and not give in. I just wish my dream self had been far smarter about it. I will never forgive myself for what I did to Tamsin. I don’t understand how she didn’t see it in her aura or taste it in her chi. Or the fact that we were sleeping in the same bed and Tamsin was viewing it as an actual relationship and I was just viewing it as friends-with-benefits.” Bo didn’t understand how her dream self had been that blind. Bo could easily read people’s auras in this life and be able to tell if they were in love with someone.

It went without saying that she could see it in Lara’s aura and taste it in her chi.

“I miss her, and wish I could’ve given her better than what she got.” Bo said as her voice cracked with tears as she tossed the candy wrapper at the waste basket.

Lara didn’t have an answer for that, or why Bo had been blind. She had suspicions, most of them to do with Bo being a) blinded by Lauren and b) more into Tamsin than she realized and in denial about it, but it was pointless to speculate. She slipped her arms around Bo. “I know you do. But I don’t think she’d hate you.”

It was possible that it was a bit of both, probably with more emphasis on being blinded by Lauren. Towards the end of the dreams, it did seem that everything revolved around Lauren where Bo was concerned.

She slipped her arms around Lara and pressed her face into her shoulder. “She’d have every right to hate me,” she sniffed.

“But she wouldn’t.” Lara held Bo close. “How often do you have people you think would hate you, and then they don’t? Tamsin doesn’t hate you, and she never will, even if she shows up and dreams.”

Lara hoped she didn’t, selfishly. Though a Valkyrie might be a better pairing for Bo. At least as long lived as long as babies didn’t happen….

“Very often,” Bo responded, even though she was certain that was a rhetorical question. But there were a lot of times when she believed that people would hate her but they didn’t. Though as she thought about it, as much as she’d like Tamsin to be here in this life, she wouldn’t want her to dream. That would undoubtedly be torture for her, and Bo didn’t want to see her go through that.

Even if Lara thought a Valkyrie would be better for her, Bo didn’t. Just as her dream self was hooked on Lauren, Bo was hooked on Lara in this life. Even knowing Lara was mortal, she wanted to be with her and no one else.

“Are Valkyrie immortal? Besides the biological baby flaw,” Lara asked, keeping her voice even. It was something she had to know and not the first time she’d considered that as an option for her wife.

“It’s complicated, but the short answer is no.” Bo responded. “They can live for a long time, but they are not immortal. They’re sort of like phoenix in that they have several lives. When they die, they are reborn and grow up all over again. However, they have a finite number of lives. Tamsin died once, during the time I was on the train in between planes of existence, and she came back as a child that Kenzi more or less raised until she was fully grown again and got her full powers and memories back. But that was her last life, which ended when she gave birth to Dagny.”

How many lives a Valkyrie had, Bo didn’t know. She just knew that Tamsin had lived many lives over the years. Tamsin could obviously explain it better, but she wasn’t here to do so. “In essence, they can die many times before they hit their final death.” So whatever Lara was thinking, Bo would rather deal with one death as opposed to several, and then having to take care of a baby Valkyrie for the time it took for her to get back to being fully grown with powers and memories in tact.

“That would be…” Useful, honestly. Considering Lara’s lifestyle. She tried to imagine Bo turning into a child. Or god, a teenager. She’d have to lock her up somewhere because an out of control succubus with teenager hormones would not be fun to deal with.

“Probably off the table.”

“Honestly, I’d rather deal with one death as opposed to multiple. If there’s going to be any death, obviously.” The only saving grace in her dreams was that Bo hadn’t been in the truck when Tamsin had the accident that had killed her. Dyson, however, had been in the truck. But if Bo regressed in age, it could be a shitfest. Especially if she was a teenager with her succubus powers on top of normal teenage hormones.

Lara chuckled at that, lifting her hand and stroking the back of Bo’s head. In no way was she going to leave Bo alone. If she had to find some vampire, she’d do it. About the only thing she wouldn’t give up would be someone’s soul or life.

“I think I’ve had enough close calls to not want the real thing.”

Bo definitely didn’t want to be left alone, though she wasn’t thinking about that course of events right now. She snuggled closer to Lara, taking comfort in her, and she shifted her arms around her a little, then she tightened them around her.

“Good because I don’t want you going anywhere.”