A/N: It's been over a year since I last posted a story and a lifetime since I wrote fanfiction. Definitely not my best story, but it felt a nice place where to re-start.
SPOILERS to 3x04.
Please review! :)
Of Wolves and Rabbits
It happened. She's always known it would, but in all honesty she didn't see it coming. She thought she still had some time to prepare.
She knew this was trouble. She's not one of them, yet she fought their battles.
But that's what you do. That's family
Kenzi looks at the bottle lying on her lap, empty.
"Ah, vodka… Why do you always leave me when I most need you? You are like a mean lover…" she sobs, spread across the sofa like a spent diva. How did she even get home? She remembers leaving the Dal Riata after trying to see Hale. She remembers being sad and dejected because she needs help and nobody has ever time for her; then there's just a hazy memory of her private party with Lady Moskovskaya.
Her thoughts are momentarily distracted by a dark figure hovering over her, for some reason she's instinctively scared. From a distant corner in her brain a voice is screaming that she should be scared and run. But she can't remember why and what should she be afraid of. Plus she can't feel her legs.
oOo
"Come on, Kenzi! The party is over," Bo has tried to shake her out of her limbo a few times, but her bestie seems to have touched the island of bliss together with the bottom of the bottle. She won't wake up until tomorrow, with an epic hangover to welcome her at the threshold of wake.
Bo gives up eventually, and leaves Kenzi to her oblivion. She spreads a blanket over her friend's body, tucks her in and places a glass full of water with a packet of aspirin on the coffee table.
Most people think that Kenzi is a messy, shallow, lazy bone with the extraordinary talent of getting herself into troubles and saying inappropriate things at inappropriate times, but Bo knows better. Kenzi proved to be the most hilarious, dear and faithful friend she's ever had; not many people, human or fae, would still be mentally sane after enduring what they have. Yet Kenzi never baled on her, she has always been there with her quirky smile and her stoic courage. And despite tomorrow she will want to kill her while she wines non-stop for the headache that her own poor judgment gave her, Bo loves her dearly, like a sister.
The succubus silently treads across the room, switches off the lights and tiredly heads to her bed, eager to finally get this day over with.
oOo
Kenzi is sitting in the grass, wearing a black punk version of an Alice in Worderland outfit. She' reading a book. It's the story of a very old, nasty and powerful witch who grants people what they want in exchange for something very important to them, like their voice, their love, their wolf… Then one day a young woman barges into her apartment claiming justice with a chain saw, and forces her to give back one of the precious 'gifts' she stole: a man's love. The witch gives in, but in revenge she casts a curse on the young woman…. Then the book goes blank.
"And now what?" Kenzi fumbles through the book in disbelief, looking for the missing pages.
"And now what?" another voice interrupts her.
Kenzi lifts her gaze to a man dressed as a rabbit. He looks middle aged, has big white airy ears, he wears a tartan waistcoat and a tweed jacket. He's annoyingly fidgety and every other second he stares at his pocket watch with an apprehensive expression.
"And now what, what?" she asks back, half grouchy and half curious.
"And now what with the story?" he brusquely answers, an edge of exasperation in his composure.
"I don't know… the pages are blank," Kenzi protests.
"Who cares about the pages? It is your story; how do you finish it?" Rabbit man insists.
Kenzi looks at him lost. Something is really wrong here. Did she have some funny drink or is this a fae who's trying to lurk her into some dark hole and eat her?
"Look buddy, there must have been a mistake. I don't belong to the carrot family, and I would be a terrible snack."
She looks around thinking of a way to get rid of him and all at once the meadow is gone; gone the flowers, the butterflies and the glee chirp of the birds. She's sitting in the living room, a quilt covering her and an empty bottle in her arms instead of the book.
oOo
Bo can't catch sleep. She tosses and turns. One moment the bed is too cold, so she wraps herself in a blanket, then it's too warm. She adjusts the pillow over and over again, then she counts sheep, then she tries some relaxation techniques just to end up being even more stressed than before. Exhausted she sits up and stares at her surroundings.
The room is quiet, silent; the exact opposite of her head that doesn't seem to allay after the frantic day. As her gaze meets the mirror across the room, she catches a reflection of herself sitting alone on the empty bed and she knows immediately what's wrong. Lauren is not here. A pang of defeat and self-contempt runs through her mind, and she feels like a recovering addict who went to look for her former dealer right after getting her one-month-sober chip. With the only difference that an addict has the luxury to choose whereas a succubus doesn't. She is a powerful creature with deadly powers, she can coerce people into doing what she wants with a simple touch, but she can't exert any control on her own nature.
A succubus is meant to be promiscuous and feed off as many people as possible, which makes the only thing she wants, being monogamous, a physically impossible and potentially lethal folly. Bo can't forget Lauren's frozen expression when realization dawned on her; she sees her realism getting hold of the doctor as she declares defeat and gives up the pretense of the two of them being normal lovers. Lauren is a remarkably intelligent woman with several degrees and an unparalleled knowledge of the fae world; she knows and she understands. Yet the coherence of all this reasoning doesn't make it any less painful; and Bo can't help thinking that she has failed her lover.
If that wasn't enough, on top of this mess there is Dyson, the cherry sitting on the top of the pie. Why among all the possibilities it had to be him? She wonders what makes her feel more guilty; the situation especially hurtful for Lauren given his past with Bo, or the fact that having sex with Dyson felt so damn good, tender and empowering at the same time, like it used to be back in the days when he still had his love.
Bo immediately shakes this last thought out of her head.
Rules. Yes, Lauren is right. They just need to set rules and to follow them, and they will be fine.
She quiets down finally and gives in to a deep sleep.
oOo
"Who are you going to ask help to?" rabbit man is still there, apparently unruffled by the change of scenery, and demands insistently an answer, "is it gonna be your succubus friend?"
"No!" Kenzi objects vigorously, "No. It can't be her. Bo has already enough things on her minds. First the whole monogamous thing going on with Lauren, that is like trying to defy gravity; then the daily fae crap that she has to deal with; not to mention that if I tell her about this thing" she bites her lip in the effort not to scratch her arm,"then I will have to explain the whole story. I don't even want to imagine what would happen if I told her that I got Dyson's love back."
"Why?"
"Because now she's in love with Lauren. And if she knew that I brought back the competition she would hate me for trying to sabotage her love life. So, now Dyson has his love back but he suffers even more than before because Bo doesn't know and probably doesn't care..."
The rabbit rubs his forehead in confusion as Kenzi goes on exploring the consequences of this doomed triangle, "Wow, It's even better than a soap opera…" then he muses over the situation for a long moment, "So it's going to be the doctor…"
"Hello? Are you with me? How can I ask Lauren to help me fix something that is the consequence of my attempt to sabotage her and Bo? I mean, it's not that I wanted to deliberately hurt her, it's just that Dyson deserved his love back and Bo needed him to defeat the Goruda…"
"Mmhhh… Not the succubus, not the doctor, then the wolf!" Rabbit man is becoming impatient and taps his foot on the ground in a crescendo of anxiety.
"No! Are you crazy?" Kenzi would like to kick some good sense into the head of this annoying ball of fur with her bottle of Moskovskaya, but her limbs feel so heavy and tired, "Dyson has enough on his plate and definitely had enough Norn-time already. Plus, that fake blond fae never leaves his side."
"Then who's left? The blood King?"
Kenzy falls back on her sofa pulling the blanket over her head. This is becoming ridiculously unnerving, "Ok, enough with it. First of all, who are you? And why are you dressed like a Scottish rabbit?"
Rabbit man stares at her in confusion, "I am a rabbit, and I am dressed like this because I am Scottish," he answers in a dejected tone, like a kid who's sent to bed without the bedtime story, "So is this going to be the Blood King?" he timidly offers.
Kenzi sighs in surrender, "If I tell you how the story ends will you leave me alone?" at the enthusiastic nod of her guest, she gathers her strength and starts answering, "It's not going to be Trick, because he has already saved me so many times, and deep inside I think he sees me as the funny troublemaker that one day will need to get out of the way and accept she doesn't believe to the fae world. If I told him that I crossed the rules to this sign he would go mad, crazy mad, Goruda level mad, and he would never speak to me or trust me again."
Now some alcohol would be helpful, Kenzi desperately searches around for something, a shot of tequila, some wine, an aspirin. The rabbit gives her sympathetic look and offers a carrot. She takes a grief-stricken bite and goes on "I won't be able to talk to Hale either, because he's the Ash now. He has great responsibilities and he doesn't have time for me, not even if I turned his wardrobe into a fashion show that would make Tim Gunn proud. Today he shut me out. He didn't even have the decency to tell to my face that he couldn't see me, he sent a bodyguard to do the job. Like if I was some crazy stalker!"
"So you have to do this all alone… you are alone" the rabbit whispers.
Kenzi, rubs the tears off her face and sums up all the strength left in her after this extenuating conversation, "Yes, you pathetic little ball of fur, Scottish version of a Guinea pig, you…"
She looks around and Rabbit man is gone. He kept his hand of the deal, to leave her alone once the story was over.
And it is over. It's all over.
"Is that it? Is this some form of torture to make me realize that I'm in trouble and this time I won't get away with it? Is this the last version of Karma's harbinger?" she shouts at the room, not sure whom is she talking to.
She wakes up in a haze; her head pounding, her stomach dancing.
"Hello sleeping beauty," Bo greets her with a cup of coffee, "Is that a new hangover therapy?" she asks pointing at the carrot her drunk friend holds in her hands.
Kenzi sits up swiftly, immediately regretting her move as a thousand shards of glass jab her head. The memories of her dream gather slowly as pieces of a grotesque puzzle, while a pang of disbelief and desperation mixes up with the alcohol and turn her body into cement.
Bo is pacing back and forth through the room, a bundle of energy and euphoria. She talks about rules, needs, resolutions and obviously Lauren. She picks random objects from the living room, stares at them with a sentiment of purpose and stuffs them in a bag. Like if they were the secret ingredients to save some innocents from the tricks of a new fae felon. Apparently her battery recharged to the full. And she's happy.
"Did you want to talk?" Bo stares at her with a gliding smile, open to listen to her friend and momentarily interrupting her treasure hunt.
The rabbit is right, she's all alone on this one, and she has to deal with the consequences of her actions, "It's ok, Bo. Go. Maybe another time…."
As the door closes, Kenzi finally comes to term with her lack of options.
She knew this was trouble. Since the beginning.