Fae To Black
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A/N: A different take on the season 3 ending/season 4 beginning. Basically everything is Valkubus and there's no confusing amnesia. I just wanted to write something random and well, this popped into my head. One-shot only. Though if I ever think of a bigger storyline I might expand it.
Summary: Tamsin drives off a cliff and Bo disappears into a cloud of smoke. Where they wake up is unexpected – home is far away, but Bo's got two things; an expiring Valkyrie and water in her ears...
X
There was a dark cloud, shattering glass, the Wanderers tarot card laid upon the floor of the Dal.
And suddenly there was silence. Infallible and absolute.
Bo's eyes flew open and there was nothing but an expanse of dark shadows spilling from beneath her. There was nothing but the deathly quiet. No sound. No sight. No movement beyond the crushing force that seemed to hold her in suspended animation.
She shook her head as though it would clear the drumming in her ears, her hair felt unnaturally heavy from the side to side motion. It floated disorderly in front of Bo's face. Lapping across her jaw and the bridge of her nose in a tangible mess of waves, curling about her neck grippingly.
Her arms, stretched out above her, reached into the abyss of stirring shadows. Suspended lifeless as though she were frozen. She shook her head again to make sure and her hair swept from her face in a listless manner.
With a forced action that made her eyes sting from an unknown cold pressure, Bo blinked. She could see nothing.
And then panic set in, the same panic that had consumed her in the Dal before she was entangled in a lung choking swarm of smoke. A life saving panic that barrelled Bo into action.
She needed air.
With renewed strength derived from pure adrenaline Bo thrashed her limbs roughly against the depths of black, raking her hands through the cold to propel herself into a forward or upwards motion. The drag of her clothes weighed her down, heavy from the murky liquid swirling around Bo's thrashing form.
Small bubbles licked at the side of Bo's jaw, becoming stirred and garnering from her hair as the crushing force around her body thinned. She was getting closer to the surface, she could feel the pressure on her ears lift with every clawing, kicking, grasping movement of her limbs.
She just needed to breathe.
Bo broke the surface of the churning water unexpectedly with a violent gasp for air, the murky liquid was like ink under the soot stained sky, a clouded abyss watching everything as Bo coughed and spluttered to expel the water from her lungs and seemingly the bottom of her stomach.
Her lungs ached from the sheer sensation of being granted much-needed air, expanding her chest as Bo breathed haphazardly and tried to absorb her surroundings.
She could hardly see beyond the curling shadows of the soot filled air, the fine dust latched onto Bo's wet skin as she twisted against the crashing water. With every gasp for air she breathed in soot and the taste of it coated her throat thickly, filling her body with sooty shadows just like the sky and ocean around her.
Bleary eyes blinked the world into focus, the silence around her consumed the night but for the churning of water and Bo's attempts to stay above the surface.
Frantic palms hit the ocean with every tread of water her heeled boots kicked at, the black of her clothes disappeared beyond the seas surface moulding Bo into the shadows and rendering her near invisible. And a cold wind blew past to set a chill permanently within Bo's chest.
Wherever the Wanderer had taken her it wasn't what she had expected.
The ocean was vast. Stretching beyond Bo's sight. The air was cold and the soot held within it stung at Bo's eyes until they glistened with tears. She needed to find land or something to hold onto before she became too exhausted to tread water and stay afloat.
She choked on the choppy waves threatening to engulf her once more and clawed her way through the endless body of water, searching with distress for something other then her legs to keep her tiring body buoyant.
It wasn't until her arms had become numb with use and Bo's resolve had started to slip while she gritted her teeth against the onslaught of the salty ocean, that her eyes caught a glimpse of something other then endless shadows. And that sight stopped her so quickly her body sank a little and water rushed to lick past her shoulders and neck, engulfing Bo's chin and splashing her jaw as water flooded into her mouth.
A tousled mat of blonde hair bobbed into her line of sight, disappearing beyond a wave just as quickly.
Bo's heart jumped to life, racing not from the tiresome effort of keeping herself afloat, but from the sheer fact that there was someone else with her. She wasn't alone.
Paddling and splashing her way closer to the person, dread coated Bo's stomach like some kind of illness as the body drifted face-down amongst the water, jostled about by the shift of waves. The blonde hair kept Bo's eyes fixed, a beckon of colour that saw to it that Bo never lost sight of them. The long curls told Bo that the body belonged to a woman. Petite from what she could see, though strong in build.
Bo worked her throat around a swallow, ingesting some sea water in the process as she frantically swam faster.
Scattered in the cold water and surrounded by the thick air, she grabbed the woman by the collar and yanked her face above the water, pleading under her breath that the stranger was alright.
But it wasn't a stranger. It was a familiar face. Bo's stomach tightened in both elation and confusion as she stared at delicate features, blue tinted lips and the give-away arched brow of Tamsin. Lifeless and jarringly pale.
"Oh God, Tamsin." Bo breathed to no one.
She gripped Tamsin's collar tightly, a white knuckle grasp that bunched the grey denim harshly and kept the Valkyries head above the surface.
What was she doing there?
With clouding confusion, Bo manoeuvred Tamsin's lifeless body so that the Valkyries back was against her front, giving Bo the leeway to wrap one arm around Tamsin's torso and hold her in place so that her head didn't sink beyond the oceans brink. Satisfied that she had a proper hold, Bo started swimming.
Her confusion and sickening fear wasn't going to stop Bo from finding a way out of wherever the hell she was. It certainly wasn't going to stop her from getting out of the bone-shatteringly cold ocean. She could ask questions later. And she would, a lot of questions! But for now she was going to swim.
The sea surged around them, the churning waves crashed against Bo's body, slowing her pace and pulling her off-course. With only one arm able to swim through the bubbling ocean her progress was slow and Tamsin's dead-weight was becoming cumbersome.
The Valkyries arms floated outstretched aimlessly and her fingers from what Bo could see around the angry waves were blemished red from the cold. Her denim jacket covered a white tank top and Bo's free hand grabbed the side of it's collar for added leverage. Choosing instead to rely on her legs to move them both as she literally hugged Tamsin from behind. Moving slowly backwards with every sweeping kick of her heeled boots.
Bo was out of breath and her legs were shot, aching with the beginnings of fatigue when the soles of her boots brushed against something. It jolted her. Stopping her struggling movements for a brief second as her boots continued to hit upon something firm, something strong enough to bare her weight. A rush of sheer elation bubbled in her stomach and Bo allowed herself a small chuckle as she finally reached the shore.
With every step she took the water level became less, Tamsin's body became heavier without the added buoyancy of the ocean, and Bo's body tried to sink heedless to the sand below her.
She needed to breathe.
Bo's arms were cramping with exhaustion and her knuckles bore white as she recklessly dragged Tamsin's body up the shore by the wet denim of the woman's jacket. It was undignified but Bo just needed to get them both away from the lapping waves that chased the heel of her boots.
"Come on, Tamsin. Come on." Bo grunted out, her chest rose and fell with every gasp of air, and she held onto the woman who had yet to show any signs of life strongly. "Almost there," She added to herself breathlessly.
Her fingers were numb and her right wrist ached with a shooting pain as Bo unceremoniously dropped Tamsin onto drier sand, falling to her knees beside the Valkyrie in the same movement.
Tamsin was ashen. Her features lifeless under the dim light and soot stained hair clung to her face in unruly strands. Without hesitating Bo pressed two fingers to Tamsin's neck, pressing firmly over her pulse point and desperately praying there was signs of life.
She held down her hauling breaths. Trying to stifle her own racing pulse in order to find Tamsin's. The unmistakable flutter of a heartbeat graced Bo's fingertips with a slow pulse and for a second time Bo allowed herself a choked chuckle.
Tamsin had a pulse. It was weak but she had life within her still.
Worryingly smiling to herself Bo removed her fingertips from Tamsin's neck and bent her ear to lay upon Tamsin's chest, listening and also feeling for signs that Tamsin was breathing on her own. There was nothing.
"Shit," panic riled in Bo's stomach and out of sheer desperation she clutched Tamsin's face in her hands, pressing hard against wet strands of hair and deathly cold skin. She shook gingerly, wobbling the woman's head side to side in a futile bid to wake her up.
When the action did nothing a feverish panic gripped Bo's body. She needed to get Tamsin breathing. To wake her up.
So Bo slapped her.
Hard.
A blemish bloomed across Tamsin's jaw, jarringly red against her pale skin. But that was all the slap achieved.
"Ok, ok," Bo rasped into the unmoving night, her own hair stuck to her neck in tendrils of black and water dripped relentlessly from her clothes onto Tamsin. "Come on, Tamsin. Don't do this. Just...ok, shit," With her voice a breathless whisper Bo shuffled closer on her knees and placed both her hands flat on Tamsin's chest.
CPR it was then.
She started compressions gingerly. Locking her arms rigid but keeping her palms gentle as she pushed down. The strong action didn't effect Tamsin in anyway so with more confidence Bo pushed again, another compression after another until she was even more exhausted then before. But she didn't stop.
Push after push after push. Arms straight and drops of water falling from the tips of her hair as strands bounced from the movement and Bo desperately tried to pump life back into Tamsin's chest. It seemed endless. A slow motion scene that had Bo's eyes raking over Tamsin for any signs of her waking up.
When that achieved no results, Bo tilted Tamsin's face back with a weary breath in. Pinching the Valkyries nose shut while with her other hand she grasped Tamsin's chin, opening her mouth just slightly.
Bo parted her own lips, bending over Tamsin's body carefully and then with a bubbling panic she crashed their lips together, expelling the air from her own lungs into Tamsin's.
She pulled back chaotically after her lungs were empty and resumed compressions. Taking the short seconds to breathe in again, Bo returned to pinching Tamsin's nose, recklessly tilting her head backwards out of dread.
Her lips barely brushed Tamsin's a second time when suddenly the Valkyrie convulsed forward with her whole body, a sharp cough spluttered from the woman's throat bringing with it copious amounts of the ocean, and Bo pulled back out of shock and to also dodge Tamsin's vomited seawater. A little still got on her torso but it didn't register with Bo amongst the hacking sound of Tamsin expelling a bucket load of water.
A few dry gasps fell from Tamsin's lips as she sat hunched on the shore, spitting the last bits of water from her lungs disdainfully.
Bo couldn't contain her relief and with a firm squeeze to Tamsin's shoulder she bowed her head to make eye contact with the water-trodden Valkyrie.
"Hey," was the first thing Bo managed to breathe. Something about the whole ordeal had cast her breathless and everything seemed to have in that very moment caught up with the Succubus. She felt depleted.
"Welcome back." Was the next words to fall out her mouth. "You ok?"
Tamsin's breathing was just as rough and wild as Bo's own and she looked at Bo beseechingly, her eyes were glistening from coughing so violently and they shined with uncertainty.
"Where are we?" Was the first thing Tamsin said followed quickly by, "What happened?"
Bo sat back on the heel of her boots, kneeling on the shore like some dark, ominous shadow. "Beats me." She whispered truthfully.
From above the two a swirling mass of soot-stained shadows rose high into the stretching sky. Clouding over the dark land like a watching figure, waiting in hiding. A powerful Succubus and her expiring Valkyrie now trapped within the Wanderers grasp. Far from home and in a place born from the darkest of fae powers.
And suddenly there was silence. Infallible and absolute.