InsaneJournal

You want to fight someone, or somethin
Who: Larabo
What: Helping Bo through Some Emotions related to her father
When: Recent
Where: Croft Manor
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: discussion about sexual assault and related topics



Ever since she’d heard about that report that the government had a spreadsheet of pregnant teenage girls that were refugees and had asked for an abortion, Bo had been upset. Part of her felt absolutely sick to her stomach that a government could essentially do what her biological father did to her biological mother. Another part was angry about it. And another part was feeling all of the mixed emotions of knowing she was the product of a rape.

But Bo had kept the feelings to herself, not really knowing how to express them. She’d mostly attempted to distract herself with work, the dog and cats, Lara, working out or drinking. She’d worked out earlier, but when she got to the point where she knew her next punch would make the punching bag explode because she couldn’t hold back her true strength anymore she’d stopped working out. She’d showered, then decided to grab a bottle of vodka before she went off to another room. She flopped on the couch, turned the TV on and started flipping through the channels.

And she just so happened to land on a channel that was playing Law and Order: Special Victims Unit. Having an affinity for one Olivia Benson, Bo stopped channel surfing to watch it. Though the episode only made her want to drink more as it was one that had Olivia’s mother in it. The bottle of vodka had been unopened when she’d picked it up, but it was already a quarter gone after only a couple minutes.

Lara knew something was bothering Bo, but she couldn't’ tell what exactly it was. Bo was often like a cat, hiding her hurts from the world and pretending everything was completely fine. It was frustrating at the best of times, and if Bo didn’t come forward Lara was going to have to actually push on it. Something she didn’t like doing unless she had to.

The episode was about two-thirds of the way over when she found Bo watching, but the alcohol was more concerning. Silently, she sat next to Bo and leaned back on the couch, eyes on the tv.

There were times that Bo hid her hurts from the world because she simply didn’t want to talk about them. This, however, was not one of those times. This was more she didn’t know how exactly to put into words what all she felt other than she kind of wanted to tear the United States government apart, but she definitely wouldn’t do that. She’d rather not go to prison.

By the time Lara found her, the bottle was largely drained. And, well, she wasn’t exactly sober anymore, but that’s what she wanted. She wanted to numb herself to what she felt. When Lara settled down next to her, Bo shifted to lean against her, head resting on her shoulder. She craved the contact. Though of course, not long after there was a scene regarding Olivia and her troubled relationship with her mother.

Lara put her arm around Bo, still not saying anything, resting her cheek on the top of her head. And she waited. Waited for Bo to say or do something, waited for an explanation for the bottle and the inebriation. Waited for an opportunity to press.

Or perhaps she waited for nothing and Bo wasn’t ready to talk. All Lara could do was hold her, and wait.

Bo closed her eyes for some moments. Luckily for Lara, the alcohol did take away the filters that Bo normally had in place. So talking would come easier than usual. “Sorry about the alcohol. It was either that or needing a new punching bag. And possibly restoration work on our exercise room.” Sometimes Bo wondered just how strong she actually was, but she wasn’t about to put that to the test, especially when she was emotional.

“That bad, love?” Lara rubbed her shoulder and kissed the side of her head. “What’s wrong? You can tell me, you know I don’t judge.”

“I just...don’t quite know how to put into words? Like I don’t really know what I feel because I feel a lot of different things. And I’m not afraid of you judging me or something, it’s nothing like that. I don’t know what the fuck is really going on in my head, but ever since I heard about that fucking spreadsheet the government was keeping on those teenage refugees that were pregnant and all, I’ve been really upset? To put it very mildly. And then I realized the government was doing to them what my father did to my mother and I don’t know whether I’m angry or sad or both or neither about it.” Bo rambled, but it at least got to the crux of the issue far quicker than it normally took.

One thing Lara had come to understand about her wife was how much she felt. It was almost like Bo was empathic, which was entirely possible considering her Succubus nature. But she felt things deeply. Or maybe it was Lara that didn’t always feel things strongly enough; some versions of her dream self seemed to have very muted emotions, an aspect of herself she actually despised and worked very hard to not let creep into her waking life too much.

“Maybe you’re all of the above,” Lara suggested. “And maybe you feel a little helpless too. I know I do.”

Bo definitely felt a lot, and she felt deeply. She was also the type that couldn’t actually mask her feelings. Even if she tried really hard, there was always a tell (or more than one) that gave them away. She wore her heart on her sleeve, and that was how so many people tended to manipulate her because she saw the good in everyone. It was so easy to take advantage of the bleeding heart hero, and that was definitely Bo. Sometimes, she wished she wasn’t a bleeding heart. It would’ve saved her a lot of pain and trouble in her life.

“Maybe. And I do feel a little helpless. Which complicates it all even more.” Bo wasn’t exactly the wallowing type. Unless someone broke her heart, then she wouldn’t get out of bed unless she was forced out of it. She was the type that preferred to get up and fix things if she could. And if she couldn’t, well, in her Dreams there was always some Fae crisis that she could otherwise focus on getting involved in to distract her.

“You want to fight someone, or something. But there’s no one to direct your anger at in any way that would be productive.” Or not end with Bo in front of a firing squad.

Lara took her hand, squeezing it and kissing her knuckles. “Unless you wanted to confront your father?”

“Yeah.” Even in her inebriated state currently, Bo knew that going out and fighting something would definitely get her charged with assault at the very least. At worst, homicide.

Lifting her head from Lara’s shoulder, she looked at her. “I’d love nothing more than to punch that asshole square in the face, but no good would come of that. And with my luck, he’d be the real Hades and try to turn me evil or something.”

They both probably had a mental list that should never be said publically for fear of a visit from the FBI or Secret Service. Lara peered into Bo’s normally warm eyes, lifting her hand to cup her cheek. “He does keep trying to buy favor with us. I’ve...been wondering if you wanted to consider hiring someone to do some digging. About your father and your mother here.”

Though they were probably past the statute of limitations.

Bo leaned into Lara’s hand, closing her eyes for a moment. “I should probably see if I can find anything else out about him, like details and shit. I know he’s a bad guy and has some sort of criminal organization thing going, but not much more than that. Maybe I should know more in case he ever appears at our doorstep. Because he’s clearly a creep like that. Though he did give us Fae, so at least she’s something good that came out of it.”

“It’s good to be armed with as much information as possible,” Lara agreed, knowing they were plenty armed in other ways. “Don’t forget my ship.”

She wondered, not for the first time, what kind of blood had been spilt for those gifts, or worse. Knowing what Bo was the product her and her experiences while exploring far flung and out of the way places, Lara’s mind could get quite dark.

Maybe the business side of her fortune could be put to good use, slowly putting Bo’s father out of business through hostile take-overs and returning lands and businesses to local control and ownership…

“Yes, and your ship.” Bo didn’t know what else her father would try to do to win favor with them. She kind of loathed her birthday. She kind of also wondered if they’d get some sort of anniversary gift showing up in a couple weeks.

“He clearly knows about us, so we should know more about him.” But it would undoubtedly be dangerous. Her father was probably the type to protect his assets and not give up his secrets easily. Though he hadn’t been able to completely bury the information about Bo’s mother and what had happened to her. He’d made the potential court case go away, but that had been the extent of it.

Bo’s brow furrowed suddenly at that thought. “But what if that’s what he wants us to do? Or me to do, to find out more about him? I mean, he made the potential court case about my mother’s imprisonment and rape go away, he could’ve easily paid dirty cops to destroy all the records so there was nothing for me to find if I ever wanted to go looking for my biological parents. He could’ve purposely left those records alone so I had something to find, something that told me who he was. Fuck, it’s probably a trap.” Bo grumbled as she sat up and took another drink of vodka before rubbing a hand over her face. “I don’t know what to do.”

“There are a number of people we can talk to to find out more,” Lara pointed out. Not just the PI Bo had used, but there were others who were dreamers and thus an extra level of discrete. “So we shouldn’t do anything without more information.”

Lara squeezed Bo’s hand, then took the bottle away. “Or we can fight dirty. There’s no telling how many people he’s hurt. But I could instruct the business side of my inheritance to start hostile take-overs of parts of your father’s business. They can then turn around and return whatever they purchase to the public trust or whoever they might have been stolen from.”

Since she rarely discussed the full extent of her fortune, she doubted Bo had a full grasp of it. And that didn’t even account for influxes of money from her dreams.

“I suppose the best way to find out more would be to talk to someone in the criminal underworld. Which there’s probably a few running around here with their own criminal enterprises.” Bo hadn’t really kept tabs on that, but then again those with criminal inclinations didn’t really openly post about them on the network. Especially when there were Dreamers that worked in law enforcement.

“I appreciate the offer, but I don’t think you want your business dipping into the weapons smuggling and drugs and whatever the fuck else my father is into. There’s probably nothing worthwhile to give back to anyone. It’s all blood money anyways. Better to just give it to the Feds. Or, what’s that international police investigation thing?” She meant INTERPOL but couldn’t remember the word for it currently.

“i’m sure I’ve got a few criminal contacts,” Lara admitted, not willing to meet Bo’s eyes at that admission. “But I mean taking out his legitimate operations and shutting down the illegitimate parts.”

But Bo was probably right, and Lara sighed. “INTERPOL would be who to point in his direction.”

Luckily for Lara, Bo wasn’t looking at her currently, she was staring at nothing in particular, forearms resting on her knees. She was feeling like punching something again. “Personally I’d rather just cut the head off the snake and burn it all to the ground. But that’s probably not the best approach.”

“It’s the most satisfying approach, but with the greatest consequences.” Lara got to her feet, reaching down to pull Bo up with her. She worried that Bo was just spiraling and needed to be pulled out of it. “Whatever happens, we’ll deal with it together, love. But right now, I think you need some air, and to take control of … something. Maybe help out at a shelter today, or a soup kitchen. Something positive.”

“I know,” she said. Even in her inebriated state she knew better than to go in and do that. This wasn’t her dreams where she could get away with doing that, as long as her father was Fae, at least. “I feel like punching something. Kinda wish Fae Fight Club was a thing here. That’s kind of what I need right now.”

“Punch me, then,” Lara offered. “We’ve got that training gear and we both know I can take a hit.”

Bo looked over at Lara. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you in the event I send you through the wall because I forgot to curb my strength.” It wasn’t a no, and she would punch Lara as long as she didn’t shy away from potentially getting sent through a wall.

“That’s half the fun,” Lara challenged, pulling Bo towards their gym. Once there, she stripped out of her jeans and pulled on a pair of sweats, then a helmet, a cushioned vest, and training gloves for Bo to punch.

Lara had a plan to get Bo to exhaust her anger and then, perhaps, turn it into something a little more fun than sparring.

Sparring while being intoxicated was going to be interesting. But Bo wasn’t going to say no. Maybe working out some of the anger would make her feel better. When Lara got the gear on and was ready, Bo took a fighting stance, her best impression of a boxer. “Alright, let’s see how long it takes before I fall on my face.”

It could burn the booze off too, at least Lara hoped so. She rolled her shoulders, lifting up the training gloves as she got into a position to take blows. “If you’re going too hard I’ll let you know, so lets start light and then ramp up.”

“Good because I don’t want to send you through the wall if I can help it.” And given the alcohol’s influence, Bo might forget to mind her own strength. Once Lara lifted the training gloves and was ready, she started punching, alternating which glove she was hitting, going lightly to start with.

“What if I--” Lara was cut off by Bo’s attack, blocking it easily and giving her wife an encouraging smile. “You can do better than that, I’m not some porcelain doll. You can’t break me no matter how hard you might try.”

She flashed a cocky grin at her wife and beckoned her to try again.

Bo’s eyes narrowed a bit at Lara’s prodding. Logically, she well knew she could break her wife if she didn’t pay attention to her strength. But at the moment, she wasn’t focused on thinking logically. Both her storm of emotions and the alcohol made certain of that. So she put more force behind her strikes.

If they were truly sparring, Lara could have used Bo’s strength against her. Flipped her or turned her momentum around. But they weren’t, and Lara was more intent on forcing Bo to work through her emotions physically. She based herself for each punch and strike, even as her hands started to sting. “That’s it, keep that up and maybe I’ll give you a nice reward after.”

The only problem in Bo working through her emotions, and embracing them as she used physical exertion to work them out, was that she was paying less and less attention to how much force she was putting behind her strikes. More and more of her actual superhuman strength came into her strikes. She grit her teeth and narrowed her eyes as she went for a punch that might’ve actually hurt Logan.

Lara managed to bring together both her hands just as Bo’s fist connected. The impact made her bones shudder and she was launched off her feet, slamming into the padded wall ten feet away. The blow knocked all the air from her lungs and she seemed to hang against the wall for a full second before she slid down it and onto her knees. Breathing was more problematic than she would have normally preferred, coming in great, heaving rasps.

It wasn’t until just before Lara hit the padded wall that Bo realized what was happening. “Oh shit,” she cursed as she snapped out of the anger haze and went straight to ‘oh god I broke my wife’ fear. “Shit, Lara, are you alright?” Bo asked as she rushed over to Lara’s side, though she didn’t touch her on the off chance she’d broken her, she didn’t want to do anymore damage or cause her anymore pain.

Waving her hand in attempt to reassure Bo, Lara tried to speak. It was more like rasping groan, so she focused on breathing and getting her lungs to re-inflate, before she could even begin to figure out if anything had broken.

After another minute or so Lara managed to croak out. “Maybe we should have done the shooting range.”

Her back felt like it was on fire, and she pulled off the gloves to test her fingers. They hurt, but nothing appeared broken in her hands at least.

Even with the wave of her hand, Bo wasn’t exactly reassured. Especially not with the way Lara was trying to breathe. This was why she kind of wished Fae Fight Club was a thing. Though she’d learned not to punch Logan. The last time she’d done that, she’d broken her hand on his jaw.

“Maybe. Are you alright, though?” She saw the way Lara was testing her fingers. They looked to be okay, but she was worried about Lara’s ribs. And her spine.

“I’ve been through worse,” Lara said, pulling herself to her feet and feeling around her ribs. Nothing was broken, though maybe a little bruising. She reached for Bo to try to head off any guilty feelings. “I’ll be sore for a few days but I deserved that for egging you on.”

“I still shouldn’t have agreed to hitting you. I knew there was more than a chance that I’d break you.” There were guilty feelings aplenty because the last thing Bo wanted to do was hurt Lara. Perhaps punching the punching bag into oblivion would be a better idea. Though she knew it would explode with only a couple punches.

“It’s fine,” Lara assured her. “I’m fine. Come here.” She drew Bo in closer, kissing her cheek. “Maybe I should have tried this instead, hmm?”

When Lara drew her in, Bo was about to wrap her arms around her, then hesitated because she didn’t know exactly where Lara was hurting. So in the end she settled for just setting her hands on Lara’s hips, hoping that they weren’t sore. She closed her eyes at the kiss to her cheek, but for once, Bo wasn’t in the mood for that. At least not at this juncture. “Perhaps,” she responded.

“I’m okay,” Lara repeated, pulling her head away to try to look Bo in the eyes. She cupped her cheek, turning her face towards her. While she couldn’t promise any sort of solution for what had triggered this, she could at least try to get Bo to realize that.

Or maybe she could do something. “If you want, we could identify a few charities that help women in that situation…?”

When Lara turned her face towards her, she looked her in the eye. She wasn’t entirely believing that Lara was okay. After all, she’d just taken quite a hit. Though Lara had survived quite a few terrible injuries before, but Bo still felt bad about this.

“Yeah, we could.” Bo wasn’t quite sure how that would help. Donating only went so far to alleviate such feelings, volunteering would probably have a similar result. With the added bonus of dredging up the emotions again at seeing women in the aftermath of what her mother had suffered.

“It’s better than doing nothing, anyway,” Lara said, not entirely sure Bo could handle volunteering at the moment. But there were legal fees, housing and food, abortion services, shelters, counseling and numerous other ways that money could help.

And Lara hated her money, so she’d much rather see it go to good causes.

“Yeah it is.” No, Bo couldn’t handle volunteering currently. Maybe at a point in time when she was more emotionally stable than she currently was, she could take it better. But she well knew the first time would be really hard regardless of her emotional state.

“Lets get something to eat,” Lara said, staring at Bo for a long moment. “We’ll do some research while we eat to see where money can help the most. Some women need shelter, others need legal fees or abortion services. Or counseling. A little money can go a long way and I was thinking we could split a million dollars across a few different charities.”

Sometimes it still took Bo aback when Lara would casually talk about splitting a million dollars. Obviously Bo knew Lara had plenty of money, but having grown up on a farm and then basically living from paycheck to paycheck until she’d met Lara, having that much money kind of blew her mind sometimes. “Alright, that sounds like a plan.” She wondered about making the donations in her biological mother’s name as a way to honor her or something.

And speaking of, didn’t Mariska Hargitay have a foundation or charity having to do with domestic abuse or something as well? Bo seemed to recall seeing something about that during some of the SVU marathons she’d watched.

Lara slid her arm around Bo, as much to stay upright as to offer her some comfort. “Just get me to the living room and then I’ll order in your favourite, all right?”

“I can do that.” Without much hesitation, Bo actually picked Lara up in her arms and carried her to the living room. It was easier, and she was careful about where her arm around Lara’s back was so she didn’t cause her any further pain or discomfort. And, well, this was one of the few times where she could show off her strength and muscles.

“I love you,” Lara murmured, resting her head on Bo’s shoulder, while rubbing her other one and massaging it lightly. She didn’t need to say it, but she wanted to, wanted Bo to know that it still mattered and still counted, no matter what.

That actually put a smile on Bo’s face. “I love you, too,” she responded, leaning her head against Lara’s for a few moments. Bo never got tired of hearing that, or saying it. She thrived on love, and she loved Lara more than she could ever truly put into words. She was damn lucky to have her in her life, and she wasn’t going to forget that aspect.