Disclaimer: No copyright infringement intended.
So, apparently this is what I come up with between work and writer's block. Hope you enjoy!
Healing
Tamsin can't believe her luck. If she had the breath to spare, she'd cuss worse than the few sailors she knows. Of all the old cars available on this scrapyard in the middle of nowhere, they have to choose a fucking red bug to hide behind. The car's practically a fossil. Tamsin doesn't even know whether that's the car's original colour or whether it's the rust eating its body whole. Not that the Valkyrie has time for looking closely, anyway.
It's just that less rust and more metal might serve as better protection against the blaze of bullets currently being sent in their direction. Then the sound of metal slamming into their momentary protective shield drives every other thought out of her head.
They're hiding from two fauns and a hydra involved in the kidnapping of a nymph. Apart from their choice of victim, the three Fae have fully arrived in the twenty-first century because they're waving around what looks suspiciously like half automatic machine guns. And ever since they spotted the two blondes that have followed them to this godforsaken scrapyard the three Fae use as a hideout, Tamsin knows that they know how to shoot. Well, to be fair, she knew that particular aspect about the Hydra anyway. Used to.
She scowls at the memory. Of course she'd never openly admit that she can remember it. Remembering her past life opens a door inside her she'd rather wall up and forget it ever existed.
But there's nothing they can do right now apart from hoping that the kidnappers will run out of ammo. The staccato of bullets slamming into metal sets her brain on a dangerous path. And before Tamsin can catch herself, the memories come, in flashes of light.
Kenzi's bright blue eyes, her family, the first time she called a place home and meant it.
Memories of the months in hell after Kenzi's death.
Tamsin sighs deeply. Another salvo is fired and flies closely above their heads. The Valkyrie can hear her own heart beating and crouches down even more, closing her eyes.
The static white noise all the time was the worst. Only second to the place she ended up going to ever so often to in order to get rid of the chaos in her head.
The entrance to Valhalla.
It didn't work. Of course. If anything, going back there made matters worse.
Standing in front of the gate, the sounds drilled into Tamsin's ears, even though she could feel the pressure on them like she's trapped somewhere beneath a column of water, in the depths of the ocean, no oxygen for miles and miles of darkness. She'd struggle and fight against it, as always - if she felt her limbs, that is.
She forced herself to breathe nonetheless, to stay calm, at least to keep the façade under control. She's good at that. It was harder than usual, though, her fingers were shaking and her insides screaming so loud they could be on fire and it wouldn't have made any difference. The cold air streamed into her lungs, failing to bring some sense of reality back to her.
And then, somehow, Dyson was holding her upright. He knew where to find her. She can remember his hands. He's strong enough to support her, to carry her, but she had made it clear enough that that's the last thing he's supposed to do in that moment. Tamsin wanted to shake his hands off. His concern, worry, well-meant intentions to help the dark fae burn like acid. Tamsin doesn't deserve it, that's the one thought that raced through the mist of her clouded mind. He should not be there for her, he should not have come to pick her up from that hell gate posing as the bridge to Valhalla. What Tamsin deserved that moment was to suffer, not his wolfish affections. She would have peeled his fingers off her icy skin if she could have mustered the strength. She'd have rather crawled into a ditch and died.
Again.
But if he hadn't helped her to walk back to his car, she wouldn't have made it back, the shivering made it hard enough to set one foot in front of each other. There's no way she could have come back in time to the Dal – home – without him.
And the thing is that she was there, by that stupid gate, again out of her own free will. She came back because she couldn't stand the thought of doing nothing for one second longer.
Tamsin takes a deep breath and tries to concentrate on her current task again. Fauns. Hydra. Nymph. Guns.
They've stopped shooting round after round at them. But as Tamsin lifts her head just a tiny bit to throw a glance in their direction and a wisp of her light blonde hair appears, they open fire again.
The Valkyrie slumps back down, sighing heavily. There's nothing she can do right now anyway. They're obviously trying to keep them hiding behind the car while they set up their escape. And Tamsin doesn't exactly want to stop them if it involves getting shot. So her mind wanders off again, as it happens so often these days, to the weeks everything seemed so bleak someone must have drained all the colour out of her life.
After Kenzi's death, Bo couldn't be bothered to get out of the house unless it was to visit her best friend's grave. For weeks, Bo was in mourning. The invisible knife buried in Tamsin's gut twists.
Yes. Yes, Kenzi died. Tamsin knows that better than anyone else.
She knows where she brought the black haired girl's body.
And it's ripping out her heart every single time she thinks about it, the process compressing her lungs so tightly she can't breathe for what feels like hours. It's ridiculous. She's not supposed to feel that way. She's supposed to feel strong. To be strong.
But she wasn't – still isn't – and it's eating her up.
But of course it's Bo who was suffering. It's Bo who had to hide in her room. Or Kenzi's – sometimes Tamsin saw Bo in there, just lying on her best friend's bed, when she sneaked upstairs to do the same. The succubus got more than enough sympathy and wanted even more. Tamsin's skin crawls just from thinking about any of these pitiful looks and gestures and talks she had the bad luck to witness. So many of the hypocrites, light and dark fae, dropped by to express their condolences, trying to get on the succubus' good side now that's by far one of the most powerful fae on this half of the globe. In the end, Tamsin was so incredibly sick of it she contemplated moving out and living in a car again, even if it meant leaving the loft and all the memories in it behind.
On top of that, one time Tamsin had to suffer the indignity of Lauren finding her, curled up in an alleyway behind the Dal, next to two dumpsters a dead bird. The cats were already there, looming in the shadows and eyeing each other suspiciously. Tamsin had stared at them and the tiny broken remnants of black wings in the gutter, and suddenly windpipe had constricted.
The next thing she knew were Lauren's gentle hands around her waist, helping her up from the damp concrete. To this day the Valkyrie doesn't know how – or why – she founder her.
Tamsin sneers involuntarily at the memory. She presses her back harder against the car she's kneeling behind, feeling the bullet impacts reverberating through the metal. She didn't want the human's help. She didn't want her attention, and she didn't need it. She didn't want the look in her hazel eyes that saw right through the pretended alcohol induced pass out. And for a split second the Valkyrie had thought she had seen something like understanding.
Tamsin just wanted to be left alone.
And the bad thing, the horrible, incomprehensible, idiotic thing, is that she still wants to.
It's idiotic because she has no reason to.
Because Kenzi is back.
The tiny black haired hurricane is back. The two of them had a long, tearful (on Kenzi's and Tamsin's side, although both of them had tried to hide it) heart to heart, and Kenzi is home, Dyson has finally come to accept that it's over between him and the succubus and moved on, Bo is happy again, and Tamsin wants to drown herself in alcohol.
Not that she ever had a very good grip on herself, but the amount to which she's willing to forget every single waking hour these days comes as a surprise, even to her.
It's just that she cannot understand how everyone seems to be falling back into normal, as if nothing had happened. It's the happiness that irks her. That all embracing, smothering, throttling love everyone suddenly seems to indulge in. It's just illusionary. It's all encompassing, like a toxic vapour that oozes out of all of them, diffuses through the whole house (sticks to clothes worse than cold and stale cigarette smoke), and creeps into every single one of Tamsin's cells. She takes two smouldering showers a day, and wishes to shed her skin completely. Sadly, she can't do that anymore. Her lives are ticking away.
But on the plus side, she has wings now.
They are not nearly enough to put up with the atmosphere in the house, though.
It's surrounding all of them; with the exception of Lauren, maybe.
Tamsin went to Valhalla, she went to hell to get Kenzi back, and sure, there's more gratitude for her present in her family's behaviour for this single deed than everything else she has ever done combined. She literally went to hell and came back, the tiny human in her arms. Now even Trick gives her free drinks, and she's making very good use of his benevolence. Alcohol fogging her mind has always managed to drive the dark thoughts away, one way or another.
But Tamsin just can't wrap her mind around how they manage to pretend so perfectly that everything is okay again.
First of all, that mess with the Wanderer and/or Bo's dark father is still unresolved. And it's not likely that it'll ever be. Bo wants to cut it out completely. And who is Tamsin to blame her?
Bo is the heroine, the saviour, the messiah, yes, Tamsin has received the message. But Bo is also a succubus, and so perceptive sometimes Tamsin wants to slap her for looking at her with those big sad dark brown pools that can switch to icy blue in less than a blink. Tamsin has never been able to cope with this dichotomy. Bo's nature promises a stalking, utterly lethal killer on the prowl for humans and Fae alike. Instead, Bo is this confusing, headstrong woman who lets her heart take the lead every single time.
And she even managed to win Lauren back. Sort of.
To be honest, Tamsin doesn't even know what's going on between them, and she's not really willing to find out. Not while she has this strange mutual understanding thing between herself and the doctor. Tamsin has been pretty bitchy to her in the past, she never even got around to apologize for that stupid attempt to get a hair from Lauren when she – utterly unnecessarily – dropped a comment about her kissing Bo, but that has kind of cooled down a bit. It seems. Lauren no longer glares at her every time she enters the room, and Tamsin suspects that seeing her passing the last few stages of her maturation made the Valkyrie appear completely ridiculous in Lauren's eyes anyway.
Not that she minds much.
With her life depending on a stupid red car not to let any bullets through, Tamsin realizes that her rebirth and then the neardeath in Valhalla still hasn't been enough to get a grip on her life.
She's out here, sticks her neck out for a job Bo didn't feel like doing, and desperately hopes that she can somehow find the feeling of happiness again. The sensation she felt in the brief weeks of – what? bliss? – after she died the last time. Until reality caught up with her.
Reality in the form of Kenzi sacrificing her life for Bo, hand in hand with the realization that Bo used her as a welcome distraction from the mess of her own life, and that Dyson is most certainly not able to fill whatever hole is gaping in Tamsin's chest. She doesn't even know what's wrong with her. She should have everything she ever wanted, and yet, she's as far from happy as possible.
That's something Tamsin has learnt early: if you want to keep your sanity relatively intact, look for an image that you can recreate before your inner eye in times of trouble. Something that'd get you through the hell that life can be sometimes. A memory that proves your life can be worthwhile as well. A picture of something innocent. A lot of her sisters in the North used that trick. Some of them imagined the ice of a place such as Svalbard. Crystal spears piercing the incredibly blue sky above the mountain tops with aloof precision. Smooth and reflecting the ocean beneath them like shattered glass shards. A coldness that sweeps your senses until you feel raw like your insides have been turned inside out. The feeling when you spread your wings for the first time – although that speaks rather of lost innocence than anything else, come to think of it, but it doesn't feel that way. Not in the beginning.
The thing is, though, that Tamsin can't really remember any pretty landscapes from where she's been born. Well, she can, but they're not pretty. They're brutal. She remembers ice so sharp it'd cut you if you came to close. The ice might be peaceful to some - if untouched. Tamsin can see how some of her sisters find that calming, maybe even how they can draw courage and strength out of the memories of these mountains. They have been there since before time, and will still be there if the darkness comes again.
But not Tamsin. There has been too much of it already in her life, too much coldness, too much oblivion, too much death. She needs life.
She needs to feel blood pumping through her veins. She needs the wind dancing around her wings. She needs the scent of rust and iron and smoke until the smell of blood fills her lungs and brain and she can't think of anything else anymore.
It's a silent promise she's given Kenzi.
Kenzi's grave.
She'd life, she'd life to bring Kenzi back.
And she fulfilled it.
No one else seemed to have realized that they'd have to fight for her. Dyson had been drinking and conspiring with Trick and his books, broody as ever (and god Tamsin regrets sleeping with him) and it annoyed the crap out of her. How the hell did they think they can find the solution or the key to Valhalla between dusty pages in one of Trick's weighty tomes? They had to get out there! Dyson of all people should know that, but no, the famous wolf has been tamed.
Even Bo hid from the world. The glue that had held them all together had simply melted away and all the ugly cracks running through the façade of their lives lay bare and naked, for everyone to see.
Lauren moved practically in with them to support Bo. Sometimes it felt like she was the only sane being in the whole loft.
So in the end, Tamsin took matters into her own hands.
She broke into Valhalla to get Kenzi back. In the end, the gate to Valhalla opened for her once more and this one time she brought someone out instead of into it. It should have been the happiest day of her life. But she feels like a compass needle that has lost its pole, and spins and spins, round after round.
Vehemently, Tamsin shakes her head and manages to fire a few bullets back at the Faun who is trying to sneak around them. The scent of smoke is beginning to fill her nose. Her own gun feels hot in her hand. The fae darts quickly back to where he came from. He even flinched a bit, and the Valkyrie thinks she spotted a thin red band spreading along his upper arm. Maybe she managed to graze him. Something that feels almost like satisfaction settles in her. One year ago she'd have howled with triumph. Hitting him at this distance with her old SIG Sauer is a testimony to her shooting skills.
But today she's not even able to smile.
Cursing, she drops her gun to the floor. The metal clatters on the concrete, it's empty, no ammo left. She could actually use Dyson right now, for once. Her partner. She pulls a face and crouches down further. But no, the wolf had no time for actual work.
Instead, the Valkyrie is stuck with Lauren.
The blonde is right beside her, has been there all the time. Lauren wouldn't let Tamsin go on her own. She's practically flattened against the car. A few mud stains are splattered across her dark brown leather jacket, they're from when they tried to creep up on the scrapyard. Right now the human glides towards her end of the bug and tries to steal a glance at their perpetrators without getting a bullet in the head. She's and epitome of calmness and concentration, despite being shot at.
"You should have given me a gun," she hisses through clenched teeth. Okay, maybe she's a little tense.
"And how exactly should I have done that?" Tamsin snaps back, almost mocking despite the situation they've manoeuvred themselves into.
"You have more than enough in the boot of Dyson's car."
"I can't run around giving police firearms to civilians. I thought you of all people should know that."
"As if you'd ever follow the rules."
Tamsin shoots her a brief look over her shoulder while she's looking around the car's trunk. "It's too late now anyway."
The doctor pulled out her phone and types furiously. "I can't get a signal."
"Great. We're in the middle of nowhere," Tamsin growls, "Do me a favour, would you? Stay here."
Lauren looks up. A strand of golden hair falls over her right eye, almost hiding the dark shadows underneath, Tamsin notices, which by now are a constant for all members of their fucked up family no matter how hard they pretend to be back in happy-sunshine-gang mode. Lauren frowns. "What do you mean? We'll have to wait for Dyson."
But the Valkyrie is already gone.
Tamsin dives headlong out of the protective cover of the car, around its taillights, bullets whizzing by, and Lauren's faint voice at the edge of her perception, calling her name and cursing, and then Tamsin is pressed against the next car. Significantly closer to their target. It's lucky that they have so many old cars on this scrapyard. Her chest is heaving and her heart hammering in her ears, but her head remains surprisingly clear.
She takes a deep breath and ignores the stinging sensation in her side. It's probably nothing. (It's a bullet that grazed her ribcage and left a trail of pulsing, growing red. Tamsin will tend to it later, as always.)
And her next heartbeat propels her out of the cover of this car as well, and then somehow she's above the first Faun, the one that tried to sneak behind them. She pushed herself away from the concrete under her feet and leapt over the hood of the car he's using as a cover. He's isolated from his friends. Tamsin appears out of nowhere. She sees the shock in his eyes, followed by horror as she kicks the gun out of his hands and she feels her face turning into the black skull as soon as her feet hit the ground again. She crouches down to ease the impact. When she gets up again, neck and spine straight, her powers turn him into fae vegetable. For the next few hours, at least.
She leaves him behind and tries to figure out where the rest of the kidnappers are, tasting ash on her tongue.
Lauren has the quick wit and distracts them easily, while Tamsin glides past the few remaining cars between her and the Hydra, closing in on him and the second Faun. They don't notice her.
After that it doesn't take Tamsin long to take them both out and find the Nymph. She looks visibly shaken. Lauren gives her a quick once over before she turns to the Valkyrie. Her eyes linger on Tamsin's waist, where the faint red stain is rapidly spreading and developing a darker shade.
Tamsin grimaces. "It's nothing."
"You say that every single time."
"'Cause it's always true."
Lauren's eyebrows shoot upwards. She almost looks like she'd taken a step towards the Valkyrie if she hadn't been supporting the Nymph. "Last time you came to my office you needed twelve stitches."
Tamsin looks away, pressing her hand on the wound to stop the bleeding. "A scratch."
"You sure?" Lauren asks, and her eyes narrow as she sucks her bottom lip between her teeth. The suspicion that Tamsin is playing down her injury is written plainly on her face. And of course she's right. Lauren is always right.
"Yeah." Tamsin says with determination while she shuffles from one foot to the other.
"Okay," Lauren breathes finally, looking away from the Valkyrie. Still, her next words, even though she doesn't expect an answer, are directed at Tamsin as well. "You know that you can always come to me if you need to be patched up."
…
This time Tamsin can manage just fine on her own. After they get home again and Kenzi greets them just like the whirlwind she is.
"You had me worried sick!" Kenzi exclaims with feigned agony, throwing her arms around Tamsin as soon as the Valkyrie steps through the door. Lauren smiles softly, walking past them.
Tamsin winces and freezes at first, but returns the hug after a second or two, way more hesitatingly than Kenzi. "Sorry," she mumbles into the black hair pressed against her shoulder. After a moment she huffs "Kenz, do you honestly think you still need to look out for me?"
"Nah," Kenzi giggles while she steps away again, "you're a big girl now."
Tamsin tries to smirk, but Kenzi is already on her way back to the kitchen, not noticing the red stain on her shirt Tamsin is hiding underneath her leatherjacket.
Lauren's eyes follow her as she makes her way upstairs to clean the wound and put a bandage on it.
First she takes a shower, though.
That's a habit she has developed in the last few weeks. She's taken to showering without end. No matter whether the water is scolding hot or freezing, she'll stand under it until her body is numb and her mind blank. It's a coping mechanism, a small voice in the back of her head tells her, and a pretty stupid one.
She's still itching all over, as if the disgust with herself, the anger that she hadn't been able to protect Kenzi in the first place, somehow crawled under her skin. It's irrational and she knows it. Kenzi is wolfing down brownies downstairs in the kitchen, probably. Even her nightmares are getting better. She's healing. Because Tamsin did save her, in the end. But the tiny voice in the back of her head goes on and on, whispering, still asking why Kenzi died in the first place, how Tamsin could let her die.
Asking why Kenzi left Tamsin behind that day.
Tamsin ignores it. She's good at ignoring things.
She ignored the Wanderer's threat until it was too late and he basically on their doorstep. She ignored Acacia's advice.
She ignored how much Kenzi was hurting and tried to wrap her head around that stupid prophecy instead.
She ignored her gut feeling.
…
It's a good thing Lauren knocks loudly on the door before she steps into the room, or else this time she'd have found her, head on her arms, under the shower. Well, Tamsin is already wrapped in a towel. But for some reason she sat down on the bathtub again and didn't get up until she heard Lauren's voice, asking whether the shower was free. Lauren is basically living here, now that she and Bo are back together. Sort of.
The Valkyrie pulls herself together again and gathers her clothes. The tiles feel surprisingly cold under her naked feet as she hurries to the bathroom door.
When she almost throws it open, Lauren takes a quick step back and brings a little distance between Tamsin and herself. She had been standing very close to the door, about to knock again, her hand raised. "I – uh," she says, blinking at the Valkyrie who has nothing but a white towel draped around her body. Then Lauren's eyes snap away from the fae, to a point somewhere on the left of Tamsin's head, and draws her fingers through her long golden hair.
Tamsin smirks at her. "We might be out of hot water."
Lauren's hand drops to her side. "Seriously?"
"Honest mistake," Tamsin answers simply, "I didn't think you'd stay."
Lauren nearly glares at her. She jumps aside, though, when Tamsin pushes past her.
"I'll order some pizza," Tamsin calls over her shoulder on a second thought as she walks towards Kenzi's room to get changed. "Want some?"
"Yes," Lauren shouts back, the water already beginning to run, "just don't eat mine, okay?"
…
Turns out, Lauren wanted to stay because of Bo. But as Bo and Dyson return form wherever they'd been, Kenzi announces that she wants a ladies night out, and Bo agrees enthusiastically. Lauren shakes her head, though.
"Sorry, babe," Lauren mumbles and Tamsin clenches her teeth. They're sitting next to each other on the couch, watching TV and waiting for the pizza to arrive.
"Do you really don't want to come?" Bo asks, already slipping into her jacket. "It'll be fun."
About as much fun as getting hit by a train, Tamsin thinks. Repeatedly.
"It's been a busy day and I'm really tired. Maybe next time," Lauren answers.
"What about the pizza?" Tamsin asks Kenzi across the room.
"Leave something for me. I'll be hungry when we come back!" Kenzi grins, putting on her jacket as well.
"You wish," Tamsin replies dryly. "You not here when it arrives means more for me."
"You don't even like Pepperoni. Why aren't you coming with us? Since when do you turn down invitations to the Dal?"
All three women in the room look at her with curiosity. Tamsin pulls a grimace. If she told them that she didn't manage to doge the bullet, that it grazed her more severely than she'd thought originally, or that by now the bandage hidden underneath her fresh shirt is probably red again, she'd have to listen to three different lectures about watching out for yourself and each other. Nothing she wants to do right now. "There's a bottle of Jack somewhere left around here and that's about the only guy I've got the nerves to pay attention to today."
"Your loss," Bo huffs, and the next second she's pressing a kiss on Lauren's cheek – Tamsin looks away, as fast as she can, but she catches a glimpse of Lauren's tense expression nonetheless – and then Kenzi pulls her friend out of the door, just as their food arrives.
Lauren's eyes follow them and Tamsin jumps up to get some money to pay the poor delivery boy who seems to have lost the ability to speak the moment Bo strolled past him. He doesn't find it again until the Valkyrie shuts the door in his face. While she balances two cans of soda and the cartons back to the couch, Tamsin mumbles something about him not deserving one cent of the tip she gave him.
And without even having fully realized it, it just kind of happened without anyone having a say in it, she and Lauren are spending a Friday evening together, watching TV and eating pizza. And what's more, for once Tamsin doesn't want to disappear.
Still, it's a tiny bit awkward.
Until Lauren catches Tamsin looking at her, and starts to laugh. "Look at us two. A few months back who would have thought?"
"Well, you've stopped keeping dead people's livers and stuff in the fridge," Tamsin huffs, her eyes glued to the TV screen again. It's a stupid documentary about Vikings. They get 90 per cent wrong.
"Says who?" Lauren deadpans, her voice utterly serious.
The Valkyrie nearly chokes on her first slice of pizza.
"Relax, Tamsin, I'm joking."
"Yeah, sorry, I'm not really used to that."
Lauren chuckles.
"Are you sure you want to watch that?" Tamsin asks and nods towards the TV.
The human looks back at the screen and tilts her head to the side. After a moment she says "it's not really historically accurate, is it?"
"Nah," Tamsin drawls, and grabs the remote to change the channel. She flicks through a few and finds a bad action movie about a bunch of soldiers in Iraq. There's a lot of sand and sun, plus a few flashy explosions. Tamsin tilts her head to the side as a jeep is violently blown off a dusty road, flies several metres through the air and comes to rest on its roof, wheels still spinning. Seems okay enough. "How about that?" She asks and glances over to the human.
Lauren is completely rigid, tense to the point of looking like a marble statue. Her eyes are wide and emotionless, glued to the pictures on the screen. The pizza rests completely forgotten on her knees. Her fingers are digging so deeply in the couch her knuckles turn white. Huh. Interesting. Tamsin's raises her eyebrows but doesn't say anything. She simply changes the channel again.
In the end she finds a random sci-fi movie about people blowing things up in space. The story is probably way to cheesy for either of them but Lauren seems to enjoy the science bits – after a lot of eye-rolling she starts correcting every single line one of the technicians says but she does it with the curve of her lip softening and turning upwards – and they're also shooting aliens, so there's that.
"Want a drink?" Tamsin asks during the first break and stands up.
"No, thanks," Lauren mumbles and focuses on her pizza again.
Tamsin shrugs and saunters over to Bo's not-so-well-hidden stack of hard alcohol. She opens the cupboard and choses, after a moment or two of careful considerations, a bottle of whiskey. She doesn't really plan on getting hammered. Just a bit of numbness would be good.
"I'm surprised there's still some left," Lauren says as the Valkyrie comes back to sit next to her again.
"Maybe Bo knows a refill spell," Tamsin scoffs and pours herself the first shot.
"Or Kenzi uses her powers on Trick."
"I hope not. The old man knows a few tricks on his own and I wouldn't want to drink anything he's used his protection mechanisms on."
Lauren smirks. "That would teach her a lesson."
Tamsin empties her glass. The alcohol burns pleasantly in the back of her throat. "As long as she doesn't drag anyone else in her business."
Lauren gives her a surprised look. "I would have thought you'd be the first in line to participate in her pranks."
The Valkyrie falls silent, trailing the rim of her glass with her index finger. Lauren doesn't push.
After a long moment Tamsin opens her mouth again, and her green eyes fall back on Lauren. "There're just too many people around at the moment. I think we need a bigger place. Even Evony is sulking around here all the time. If I didn't know better I'd say she wanted to woo you. Either to make her Fae again or to get into your pants, I'm not sure about that part yet."
Lauren chooses to ignore the last bit and folds her long legs underneath her. "Well, where is she supposed to go? She has crossed quite a few Fae in her time, and they'd very much like to make it even. As ridiculous as it sounds, Bo is Evony's best, most secure shot at the moment."
Tamsin ponders this for a while, throwing a speculative look at the whiskey bottle on the table. "How did you do it anyway? Turn her human, I mean. I never asked," Tamsin says finally, watching her hands as they reach for the bottle, and pours herself another drink.
"Are you sure you want to hear it?" Lauren asks softly. Then she bends forward and softly pushes the bottle out of Tamsin's reach.
The Valkyrie scowls at her. "Yeah," she hisses.
So Lauren tells her.
And, out of nowhere, the Valkyrie has to laugh so hard she nearly falls off the couch. Spilling whiskey all over the place.
The story of how Lauren – Lauren – tricked Tamsin's former boss, the Morrigan, Evony Marquise, into taking that serum is the best story she has heard in weeks.
It's the first time she laughs, properly, stomach hurting, whole heartedly laughs since she came back from Valhalla, but she's too occupied by the image to notice.
Kenzi has been trying to cheer her up in the past of course. Kenzi and Tamsin did form a special bond, one both of them haven't fully grasped yet, but Kenzi also has to mend her relationship with Bo, and she's still mourning Hale's death. She never speaks this out loud, Tamsin knows it only instinctively. But Kenzi nourished the hope that Hale would somehow be on the other side, waiting for her. And in a very foolish self-deception Kenzi begun to think that maybe, just maybe, she could bring him back. Of course it hadn't been the case, and in retrospect Kenzi knows that it was stupid to even think of that because it's hurting like hell all over again, but at least she can settle now and – as horrible as it is - accept that Hale is gone. She's much calmer these days, but the bubbly Kenzi that slipped easily into the role of the first real mum Tamsin ever experienced floats back up from time to time, and all of them think that those happenstances are increasing, much to their joy.
By the time she's got herself under control again, Tamsin feels like her lungs would have burst if she had laughed one second longer. The warmth beginning to spread from there reaches her fingertips as she watches Lauren tremble. Tamsin presses her fist to her mouth to prevent herself from bursting out again. Lauren looks as if she might start to cry tears of laughter.
When their eyes meet again, Tamsin's hand falls away and she lifts her legs up on the couch, turning towards Lauren, resting her chin on the knees she pulled to her face.
For a brief moment, silence settles between them again. The TV is still running, but they're ignoring it completely.
"Sorry for all I did," Tamsin whispers, "and thank you for staying here."
For a second it looks like the human might wince. But then a smile starts spreading over Lauren's face. There was light in her eyes before and now she's practically glowing. The shadows underneath her eyes are lifted away. Tamsin didn't realize how stressed she looked all those past weeks until now, when the human soaks up what Tamsin has to say.
Lauren needed to hear these words.
So Tamsin says them again. "We wouldn't – couldn't – have done anything without your help. So," she clears her throat, "thank you, Lauren."
The human lays her head against the couch. "You didn't really need me to get Kenzi back. You would have found a way to open the gate even without me studying Trick's books."
"Fishing for compliments, are we?"
Lauren grins. "No. Seriously. But thank you for saying this. I really appreciate it."
"You appreciate it?" Tamsin mocks.
If she had a pillow in her reach, the human would have thrown it at her. Instead, she unfolds her legs again, crosses them, and grabs the bottle. And because Tamsin hasn't brought a second glass, she simply takes a long swig directly out of it.
For a moment Tamsin's green eyes threaten to fall out of their sockets. Then she has herself under control again, and as Lauren takes her lips off the bottle and sends a satisfied smirk in the direction of the Valkyrie, Tamsin sits up and stretches out her hand to take the whiskey from Lauren. Replying with a toothy grin, one of the broadest ones of the last weeks (months?), she accepts the alcohol from the human. Their fingers brush for the fraction of a heartbeat and before Tamsin has the time to process how incredibly soft and warm Lauren's hands are, she mirrors Lauren's previous movement and drinks directly out of the bottle.
The human cracks on of her blinding smiles. Tamsin doesn't know whether it's the alcohol or Lauren, but whatever she's soaking up right now, the fuzziness she's feeling is the best thing that happened in weeks. It's not numbing. It's just breathing in and out, not thinking at all, and a soothing warmth settling in her stomach.
They focus back on the movie. One of the scientists hacks into the mothership's main computer and gets yelled at by the AI.
No, correction. Lauren's melodious laughter is the best thing she has head in weeks, and it's funny, really, because as long as Lauren has basically been sharing a flat with her, Tamsin is sure she hasn't heard her bubble like this. The whiskey wanders back and forth between them while they make fun of the movie, and when it finally ends Tamsin thinks she'd sway if she stood up. Also, Lauren still has a little bit of tomato sauce from her last bite of pizza on her cheek, just above the corner of her mouth, and the Valkyrie just can't tear her eyes away from it. Lauren doesn't notice her and points towards the closing credits on the screen. "Another one?"
"Sure." Tamsin smiles and throws the remote at her. Lauren's reflexes aren't very good even if she's sober, so her hands grab only empty air. The remote sails straight past her head and clatters to the floor.
"You need to work on your aim, Tamsin," Lauren drawls while she bends over the end of the couch to pick it up again, and Tamsin laughs again.
When Bo and Kenzi come back home, hours later and more than just tipsy, they find a very unexpected, strange looking picture.
Lauren and Tamsin are still lying on the couch, but fast asleep even though the lights are still on. They're sprawled all over it, heads facing away from each other on the opposite ends of the couch. Lauren's face is buried in her arms, whereas Tamsin is lying fully on her back, mouth open and breathing softly. Empty pizza cartons and a bottle of Jack Daniel's litter the table in front of them and the TV is still blaring, at a low volume.
But their legs in between the two women are entangled and halfway hidden underneath a blanket they'd ended up sharing. It's crumpled shifted to the side as if either of them had struggled for more than their fair half, and exposes almost the whole length of their legs. Looking for warmth after the blanket fell away, the human and they fae are touching, their legs and feet intertwined and softly resting on top of each other.