Title: The Human Condition
Author: h-bomba & lonejaguar
Rating: M
Spoilers: up to and including 3x13
Summary: Set directly after the events in 3x13. Sought by both Light and Dark Fae, Lauren is finding it hard to adjust to life away from the Fae. Bo, too, is having a hard time adjusting and sets her sights on finding the doctor with Kenzi along for the ride.
A/N: A love letter to the Doccubus fandom. We've had a rough time lately but I gotta believe that Doccubus will rise again.
As far as we can discern, the sole purpose of human existence is to kindle a light in the darkness of mere being. - Carl Jung
"Kenzi, run!"
Bo came sprinting around the street corner and into the alley. Kenzi was a few paces ahead of Bo and Bo was only a few steps ahead of a gang of Dark Fae thugs. This was the third attack this Kenzi reached the doorway to the Dal, she looked back at Bo who was overwhelmed by the sheer number of Fae. Kenzi let her hand fall away from the brass handle and ran into the fray.
"Kenzi, what are you doing?" Bo grunted between defensive tactics.
Kenzi swung her sword. "Saving your ass," Kenzi called back as the blade's carnage was sewn.
Bo stood and elbowed her attackers backwards.
"Bo!" Kenzi was being restrained by no less than three Fae.
"Tell us where Dr. Lewis is or the human gets it," the guy with the crazy eyes said with a flourish.
Bo sized the crew up. The one holding the knife to Kenzi's throat winked at her. "Tell the Morrigan that we don't know where Lauren is."
"Sure about that?" The leader of the gang tightened his grip on Kenzi and a trickle of blood fell from her neck. She whimpered.
"Buddy, how about you let go of my friend, here, and we can talk about this."
"Sorry, my orders are to exterminate the human." He grinned and lifted his elbow. Before the blade could move, Bo's arm lifted suddenly as she released a dagger from her hand. The guttural gasp from the Fae told her it hit its target without ever having to take her eyes off the other two thugs. Kenzi escaped the clutches of the wounded Fae and returned to Bo's side.
"Which one of you wants to live to tell the Morrigan what happened here?" Bo's hips swayed as she walked in front of the men with another knife in her hand.
When both of their hands went up, Bo's eyes flashed blue and she lunged in their direction. The men ran off into the alley, footsteps echoing between the buildings. "Come back when you're ready to play," Bo called after the men.
Some might say she was lucky to get out alive but Lauren Lewis didn't believe in luck. She was a scientific woman, with a scientific brain and she knew that every action has an equal and opposite reaction. She also knew coincidence to masquerade as luck. How else could Lauren justify all that had gone wrong in her world without blaming it on luck?
If Lauren believed in luck she would have given up on living long ago. With nothing but bad luck Lauren would break so much easier and lose hope. After all, how could she reconcile Nadia's misfortune as anything other than that? How could she just wipe it all away and boil it down to bad luck when there were so many other factors to take into account. This was the Fae's doing and calling it luck only gave the Fae more credit than they deserved.
Lauren's desk drawer shut with a clatter. She hadn't meant to slam the drawer, but in her reverie she had done just that. Startled by her own hand, Lauren let them fall to her side as she leaned back in her chair. These were complicated times and for once in her life Lauren found herself without the answers.
Bo was… indescribable. For every adjective Lauren could think of, there were three more that suited her better. Lauren often wondered if it was the same for her suitors. If she was the most obvious choice, but there were three others that would be equally agreeable if not to Lauren, than to Bo. For that, maybe Lauren should feel lucky. Lucky that Bo chose her, that she continued to choose her. But she wouldn't. Lauren was in charge of her own fortune. The Fates did not choose this life for Lauren. She did. She made the decision to try to save Nadia at any cost, even if that meant co-signing her freedom away to the Light Fae. Even if it meant walking away from a promising medical career to become a specialist for them.
Now she was starting again, trying to reclaim that promising career. She left a life that treated her as subhuman, one that used her for her skills and hated everything else about her. But she also left a life that gave her friends, challenged her scientific beliefs and quite possibly introduced her to the love of her life.
Convincing Taft of her alliance through her rejection of Bo was the most difficult thing she'd done. Walking briskly out of Taft's office after saying goodbye to Bo, she had disappeared up the stairs and into an empty guest room. It was private enough for her shed the tears she'd been holding ever since she saw the broken-hearted expression on Bo's face. She hated herself for causing it. But when she stood at the window half an hour later, bag packed, and watched Bo high tail it for the facility gate beyond the line of maple trees with Tamsin, suddenly hurting Bo for the betterment of the Fae came a close second to this.
The knock on her door startled her and Lauren straightened in her chair. "Come in," she called.
A wide-eyed boy stuck his head around the corner. "Professor Lewellyn?" he asked.
"That's what it says on the door." The boy leaned back into the hallway to look at the lettering on the glass. "Mr. Fisher," Lauren called. The boy's head appeared again. "What is it?"
Ryan Fisher slid into the office and stood just inside the door. Lauren didn't understand this apprehension, but it felt kind of nice to strike fear into the hearts of university kids. "I, uh…" He looked everywhere but her eyes. "I just thought my paper on the scientific value of animal models of disease deserved a… better grade."
"Ah." Lauren had heard this one before. She'd used it a few times, too. She might have only been doing this for a few months, but students hadn't changed. "I think I can take another look, Mr. Fisher." The smile on his face was wide as he dug around in his leather satchel and pulled out his paper, freshly printed and a pristine white. He handed it over.
"Thank you, Professor Lewellyn," he said quickly and turned to the door.
"You know, by looking at this again," she said, giving the student pause, his hand on the door knob. "I might find something I missed the first time around." The hope seemed to drain from his face. "I'll have it for you on Monday."
"Are you sure about this?" Massimo dangled the bottle in front of her from under a street lamp next to the waterfront.
"I'm standing in the shadiest part of the shady part of town with a creepy stranger asking him for a mystical potion to turn me Fae." Kenzi snatched the bottle from his hand. "Of course I'm not sure about this."
When she turned on her heel, she half expected him to follow her. After she'd been called away to the hospital the first time she was on her way to Massimo, she didn't think she'd get the courage to go again. But then the attacks started. Every few days or so found Bo and Kenzi facing some manner of Dark Fae thugs demanding the location of Lauren Lewis. It was made all the more frustrating by the fact that neither of them had any idea where Lauren was and if they did, the mood in the clubhouse would be a lot lighter.
"Kenzi, I don't know about this," Bruce spoke softly as they walked. "This is a life-altering event you're putting yourself through. And you can't go back."
"Oh Brucie," Kenzi patted his arm. "You're so adorbs." She looked left and right before marching across the street to the car. "I'm super badass now, but imagine me as a Fae! I could… breathe fire, or turn invisible, or make people do things for me." She smiled. "And the best thing is I'd get to live hundreds of years with my favourite succubus. We can fight crime into the seven-hundreth century!" She punched the air enthusiastically.
"Kenzi," Bruce said. "That's sixty-eight thousand years from now."
She stilled mid-air as it hit her. "Oh." Her arms dropped to her sides. "Well, whatever, I'll live forever. I'll kick ass. It'll be awesome." Kenzi opened the driver's side door. Bruce sighed and shook his head, stepping inside the car.
"Well, if it isn't my least favorite Fae," Evony smiled disingenuously. She stood and walked out from behind the large glass desk.
"I'm not so crazy about you either, lady," Bo said. "I don't know where Lauren is. So stop with the hordes of Red Caps and Berzerkers."
"The games are already afoot to catch your Sapphic scientist."
"I don't know where Lauren is."
"Well, honey, you better find her because this isn't going to stop."
"She's innocent." Bo defended.
"Of course, she is." Evony rolled her eyes. "And I didn't have a hand in spreading the bubonic plague."
Bo called her bluff. "Why don't you go and find her?"
"Now why would I waste time or man power when I know you'll find her for me," she said glibly. "After all what's a human-loving succubus to do without her human to love?"