AN: Sort of an AU, I guess? Same general universe but obvs all the animosity fueled tension and things going on S4 (and part of S3 really) aren't/haven't been going on
Lauren shifted around restlessly on her couch, leaning back against the armrest and smoothing her hands down the pages of the book in her lap. She sighed for probably the fifth time in just as many minutes and tilted her head back to squint at the ceiling when she couldn't seem to focus on the tiny print on the pages. She thought briefly that maybe she needed glasses but quickly dismissed the notion; her slightly blurred vision was definitely a warning sign that she was going to have a headache if she didn't do something about it now. Straightening up slightly, she leaned over and placed her book face down on the coffee table and traded it for the glass of water nearby, taking a long drink to finish the contents and setting it back down carefully on the coaster before returning to her supine position and resting an arm across her eyes.
Though she was certainly no stranger to snowstorms in the wintertime, it was highly unusual for the Fae labs to be shut down in the event of a storm, but that's precisely what had happened. The constant flickering of the power was just not conducive to favorable working conditions. After the eighth time in six hours the power went out, plunging the lab into darkness. Coupled with the constant panic every time the lights changed in brightness, which threatened outages, orders came from the Ash that everyone should just leave. Wasting the backup energy on running the full lab was foolish in the event the power stayed out and they needed the emergency power to run the medical coolers, not to mention all the work they kept losing over the unpredictable power failures.
That had been over six hours ago and it wasn't as if Lauren didn't like time away from the lab, she treasured the precious times she wasn't tethered to the med lab but she was wholly unused to not only not having to be at the lab, but also not having work to do or someplace to be outside the lab. She honestly couldn't conjure up a time in recent memory when she'd had nothing pressing that needed her attention for more than four consecutive hours. Groaning slightly as she lifted both arms into the air and tried to stretch them beyond their reaching capacity, she finally registered how empty her stomach felt. Rising off the couch and walking over to the kitchen, she realized that she'd not eaten at all that day. She had meant to in the morning, but upon looking at the worsening weather conditions decided it was best to get into the lab before the cab services shut down and once at the lab, she'd had to deal with the sudden power outages and the flickering lights which involved continually recalibrating the medical coolers to ensure that the next time they wouldn't lose any valuable samples and work every time a lab tech reset it thinking the power would stay on.
Most of the time, she was generally too busy to think about food and rarely noticed when she was hungry until dinnertime. Glancing at the clock on the stove, she figured it being a quarter to five was a good enough reason to start dinner. Gently yanking open the door to the fridge, she was immediately dismayed by her lack of choices. There were more condiments than any one person could possibly need, a mostly empty jar of black currant jam, a couple onions she wasn't exactly sure when she procured, and two test tube trays full of various tissue samples she'd brought home a few days ago that wouldn't fit in their intended spot in the living room, which explained why she had turned the temperature of the fridge down, causing the juice in the pickle jar on the back top shelf to frost over.
Frowning, she closed the door and tried rummaging around her cabinets for something else. She should have put in a shopping order last week. She'd meant to, but had been caught up in work, naturally. The Ash's policy on her freedom of movement was very clear and quite strict. If it wasn't business, she was rarely allowed out, particularly if it had the potential to be something that distracted her from business. In order to impress upon her her mandatorily subservient role, she wasn't even permitted to have a car or do her own shopping. She was usually chauffeured around town by a Light owned cab company or someone on a preapproved list (always Fae, of course). She was allowed to walk, but walking that far to the store in the current weather was impractical at best and she'd rather deal with an empty stomach than the freezing blizzard conditions outside.
In the midst of dejectedly deciding between pasta noodles with literally nothing on them, cereal with no milk or trail mix, there was a loud knock at the door. Worry suddenly overtook her as her mind immediately went into worst case scenario mode given the lab having shut down and she half jogged over to the door, hastily opening it, steeling herself for some gruesome vision to greet her. Instead, on the other side of the threshold was Tamsin who looked impervious to the cold despite her jaw being clenched in an obvious attempt to keep her teeth from chattering, the slight shiver of her shoulders and being dressed for warmer weather. There was steam streaming off the large box of pizza in her hands and before Lauren could even greet the Valkyrie, her stomach spoke for her, growling loudly at the smell coming from the box and causing the Dark Fae to smile slightly, shifting her weight to one side.
"I've come to bribe you." Tamsin announced in a matter of fact tone, thrusting the warm pizza box into Lauren's hands and picking up a black rucksack by her feet. "So lemme in."
Lauren smiled and made way for the taller blonde to come inside, only having to glance down pointedly at her boots, which were caked in snow before Tamsin stomped the excess powdery clumps off and slipped them off inside without having to be told, gently shutting the door behind her.
"What's the bribery for?" Lauren asked on her way to put the pizza in the kitchen, grabbing her empty water glass on the way. "You need some work done?"
"Jeeze, doc, is work all you ever think about?" Tamsin called teasingly after her, dropping herself down on the end of the couch and promptly putting her sock clad feet up on the table, wiggling her toes that had somehow become damp even through her boots.
Lauren smiled and shook her head even though the other woman couldn't see her and pulled out two plates from an overhead cupboard. It wasn't really unusual for Tamsin to just show up to see her for no reason, but it was generally done at the Dal or meeting her after she left the lab at night to go to the Dal which the Valkyrie continued to insist was merely a coincidence. Despite pretty much everyone being extremely tense and distrusting of the Dark Fae on first meeting her (even other Dark Fae), she and the doctor had taken a relatively quick shine to each other even though it was grudging on both of their parts at first. Now, though, she would even describe them as friends and had on occasion without the slightest hint of sarcasm in her voice. In fact, as it had been pointed out to her numerous times, the two of them could get downright flirty. That particular level of their friendship had started because it made Dyson and his sense of propriety when it came to how Lauren conducted herself, visibly uncomfortable and there was little Tamsin liked to do more than make people uncomfortable but eventually it just got to be a natural part of their interactions. Even when Bo had commented on it, Kenzi had agreed and while the relationship between the two humans wasn't as strained as it had been in the past now that she and Bo weren't together anymore, Kenzi still had a hard time understanding what people saw in her.
Lauren sighed forlornly at the empty water glass on the counter, realizing that all she had to offer in the way of beverages was faucet water and a Fae sweet wine Bo had gotten her for Christmas even though it was still three weeks away because she was rightly worried Kenzi would polish it off. Naturally, one would assume the wine, but Tamsin didn't care for it, she wasn't truly happy with a drink unless it incinerated the lining of her esophagus on the way down or was high in alcoholic content.
"I don't really have anything to drink but water and that wine Bo gave me last week." She informed her, bringing the plates with pizza now on them into the living room and handing one to Tamsin who immediately slid her feet off the table and set the plate down in their place.
"Gross, that barely fermented fruit punch? No big, I did say I came with bribes, didn't I?" the Valkyrie replied, reaching down to unzip the rucksack, which had been, shoved half under the table with the leather jacket she had shed while Lauren was in the kitchen. "What kind of amateur do you take me for?" With a proud look on her face, she produced two dark bottles of beer from the bag, the clicking noise from when she was rummaging indicating there were more where those came from and handed one to Lauren for inspection while promptly opening hers and gently tossing the cap on the table.
Lauren rolled her eyes; of course Tamsin brought beer with her. She put her plate on the table and took a look at the label, which was printed in Danish and she only recognized the word stout and the Danish word for oat. She hummed thoughtfully as she opened it, having never heard of the brand but it had a pleasant, almost licorice smell to it. Expecting a heavy taste that came with oat stouts, she took an experimental drink and found the slight fruity after taste agreeable and not at all like the kind of lighter fluid Tamsin normally drank which caused her to search the label for the alcohol percentage in the bottle. "This is twenty percent alcohol?"
Tamsin nodded enthusiastically, swallowing a bite of the pizza she had taken. "It's great, right? I had it sent to me a while ago. I couldn't justify drinking it when it was only seven percent, yanno?"
"Naturally." Lauren agreed, chuckling slightly as she took a long pull and put it on the table to focus on the pizza. "So, I'm asking again, what exactly are you bribing me for if it's not for work?"
"It's ridiculous out there, doc, I'm not trying to drive in it until the storm lets up and the radio said that probably won't be until tomorrow afternoon at the earliest."
Lauren jerked her right knee to one side so it lightly collided with Tamsin's left knee. "Aren't you Scandinavian?" she teased lightly.
The Valkyrie wrinkled her nose in mock offense. "Yeah, well my truck isn't. I can't be driving it all the way home in this shit and I need a place to crash. You were the closest."
The doctor smiled but didn't tell her that they both knew there were at least two other places to stay between the district station and her place, not to mention Tamsin was no stranger to the occasional sleepover at the cop shop. "Well how am I supposed to say no when you've bribed me so efficiently?"
"Exactly. I knew pizza and beer would be the way to your heart." She winked at the doctor and then closed her eyes as she tilted her head back to drink.
Lauren felt her stomach flip slightly but wasn't sure if it was from the beer or Tamsin's comment. Probably both. Tamsin made small talk while Lauren ate; already halfway into her second beer by the time the doctor finished her second slice. "You know," the human started, pushing her empty plate further back onto the table and grabbing her still half full beer before leaning back on the couch. "You should really let me study you." She said seriously, watching the Valkyrie take a pull off the bottle in her hand.
Tamsin smirked and spread her arms apart, gesturing with her hands as if to display herself. "Are you propositioning me, doc?" she held her beer up to the light to gauge how much was left. "Not that I'd mind or anything."
Lauren licked her lips and took a drink from her own bottle to keep from laughing and shook her head. "Is there anything else you think about besides sex and drinking?"
The Dark Fae shrugged. "Not if I can help it." She responded sincerely, making an annoyed face when Lauren laughed.
"No, I mean it, Tamsin. There's not a lot of cultural or biological information on Valkyries and to be completely honest, I'm really curious on how you seem to totally subsist on alcohol, coffee and junk food."
"Highly advanced and superior genetic makeup, probably? You gotta turn the science thing off once in a while, doc. It's not gonna kill you to not know something." Her eyes grew wide as if she had a sudden realization and she leaned over to stage whisper. "Oh shit, will it actually kill you if you don't know something?"
Lauren smiled and leaned over so their heads were closer together. "Guess you should let me study you, just in case." She whispered just as loudly.
Tamsin raised her eyes to the ceiling as if she was going to roll them but shook her head and leaned back, pointing the neck of her bottle at the doctor and scrutinizing her though slightly squinted eyes. "I'm not that gullible, doc."
The blonde human smiled genially to assuage any feeling the other woman might have that she would press the issue and finished the rest of the beer in her bottle. "Well, if you change your mind ever…"
The Valkyrie clucked her tongue and pulled out another beer from the bag on the floor and popped the top off, offering it first to Lauren who shook her head. "Come on, what did I just say about the science thing?" she chided though her tone wasn't serious. She took a long drink and set the bottle on the table. "Besides, you don't know if I'm off having five hundred dollar a plate banquet dinners and drinking only the purest spring water when you're not around."
Lauren laughed at the thought. "Really?" she countered incredulously.
"It could happen!" Tamsin insisted, scoffing before smiling and lifting one shoulder in a shrug. "Not that it does, but it could. Besides, I'd rather not be at some shitty social function when I can hang out with pizza and beer."
"That was almost flattering, given the circumstances."
"What can I say? I'm silver-tongued." She smiled when Lauren laughed. "I'm suddenly feeling lucky, doc, you better bust out the cards."
The human groaned in protest, but got off the couch to fetch the pack of cards from the junk drawer in her kitchen. She and Tamsin often killed time at the Dal by playing a Fae card game reminiscent of poker since she wasn't much of a pool player. She had always thought of herself as a pretty good card player until she started playing with Tamsin. The Valkyrie was a really good at bluffing, even when she was openly gloating and Lauren had promised not to look for micro expressions whenever they played, but sometimes that was the only way she had a chance of winning when it was just the two of them playing. She dropped the faded blue and white box of cards into the older woman's lap when she returned to the couch and mirrored the Valkyrie's sitting position by sitting cross-legged sideways and watched her effortlessly shuffle the deck.
"What are we supposed to bet with?" Lauren asked as cards were dealt between them. Normally, since they played at the Dal, they set a certain number of points and whoever lost had to buy the next round or had to buy food but there was nothing to pay for in the comforts of her home. She picked up her cards as Tamsin shrugged.
"Dunno. Haven't thought that far ahead." She replied, rearranging the cards in her hand. "Better think of something good to give me though."
"You never know, I could surprise you." Lauren responded, not even knowing herself if she meant she could surprise her with winning or surprise her with giving her something good. She smirked behind her cards. Probably both. She glanced up quickly to see if Tamsin had somehow acquired mind reading powers, but the Valkyrie was staring at the cards in her hand, her expression totally unreadable. "I'm going for the King on the Road." Lauren said as she pulled out a card with several runes written on it and took a card off the top of the draw pile.
"Oh come on, your hand can't be that good." Tamsin said, shaking her head. "Dragon on the Mountain." She deposited a card next to the one Lauren had lain down and studied them for a moment, strategizing.
The doctor let out a huff of air; already knowing the game was pretty much over. Tamsin never announced Dragon on the Mountain first thing unless she could back it up. "What am I supposed to give you anyways?"
Tamsin ceased her glancing back and forth between the cards in her hand and the ones lying between them and smirked. "Giving up already, doc? Maybe I'm just messing with you this time."
"I find that unlikely given how many times we've played this game."
"Could be a really long setup?"
Lauren laughed and shook her head, already ready to compare their hands and call it quits.
Tamsin shrugged nonchalantly and picked up a card from the draw pile before putting her hand facedown and dealing them several more cards. "Yeah, you're right. I guess I trust your judgment. No science stuff though."
"I wouldn't part with my 'science stuff' over a card game." Lauren countered, putting her new cards into her hand and arranging them. "Although, I've got some skunkape tissue samples in the fridge if it comes down to it."
The Fae woman wrinkled her nose and tossed a glance over her shoulder towards the kitchen. "You keep that shit in your fridge, doc?" she asked, turning back around and took a drink of her beer before handing the human the rest to finish it.
"The trays wouldn't fit in the storage fridge, so I put them in the kitchen." She replied as if it were the most normal thing in the world, taking a drink before laying down several cards, studying the resulting combination in front of her. "And I'm not giving you painkillers for no reason."
"Aw, really, doc? You think that lowly of me? I'm crushed." But her tone said she was anything but. She smiled widely when Lauren regarded her under raised eyebrows as she picked up several cards.
The blonde doctor opened her mouth to respond when the apartment was suddenly thrust into complete darkness without warning. Since there were no windows on the lower floor, the blackness was palpable and complete. She was glad for the darkness though so Tamsin couldn't see that she'd practically jumped out of her skin. "It was bound to happen sooner or later." Lauren said closing the fan of her cards into a neat stack in her hand and dropping them in front of her on the couch. "The backup generator takes a few minutes to kick in usually, but I'm pretty sure I've got a flashlight around here somewhere." She stood up carefully and smiled slightly at registering Tamsin cursing quietly under her breath about the good play she was about to make. Lauren surprised herself by making it over to the filing cabinet near her work desk with no bashing of toes or tripping over anything. She hardly spent that much time at home so navigating the layout of her apartment in the dark wasn't exactly easy.
Dropping to her knees as if being closer to the bottom drawer would help her see what was inside it, she opened the filing cabinet and rummaged around blindly hoping she'd chance on the handle of the flashlight she kept in there. At the exact moment the generator kicked in and the lights came back on, her fingers landed on something incredibly sharp and painful. She yelped out a nonsensical syllable of pain and snatched her hand away from the drawer, unable to see properly for a moment due to the sudden introduction of light. She squeezed her eyes shut and held her fingers cradled in her other hand up to her chest, breathing in hissing gasps between her teeth.
Tamsin seemed to be there in an instant, crouching down in front of her and peering in the drawer for a moment before shaking her head. "Doc, forget what I said about turning the science stuff off because I'm pretty sure it was off when you put a bone shard stick in there… What's it even doing in there anyways?"
Lauren shook her head to try and think clearly past the throbbing burning sensation in her fingers. "I thought I'd put it someplace else." She managed, resisting the urge to run and stick her hand in cool water, which would only make it worse. She cracked open an eye when she felt Tamsin take her injured hand from her and gently pried open the curled digits to look at the damage. Her first three fingers had a thin line pressed on her skin reminiscent of a burn going across them where Lauren had accidentally grabbed the stick. Sighing slightly, the Valkyrie dipped her head and softly blew cool air onto the wound, looking up at Lauren's face as she did so.
"That's helping." Lauren said around a sudden lump in her throat that she swallowed down hard.
Tamsin's mouth quirked up slightly as if she were trying not to smile and nodded. "Yeah, don't get excited, it's not a Valkyrie thing. I'm surprised you didn't know, it's not a real burn, exposure to a stream of cool air usually clears it right up." She straightened up and looked down at Lauren's hand, drawing the doctor's gaze. "See?"
Lauren looked down at her fingers; the burn line and the redness were fading, along with the pain that came with them. "I guess not knowing something didn't kill me after all."
Tamsin chuckled and lifted the human's hand closer to eye level and tilted it from side to side to make sure she was okay. "Better not tell anyone else, they'll never let you hear the end of it and I'd rather not have competition for giving you a hard time." She let go of Lauren's hand but instead of pulling back, Lauren rested her hand over top of the Valkyrie's, which sat in her lap. The Nordic woman looked at Lauren, an expression on her face that seemed to be daring her to do something but slightly quizzical at the same time.
Lauren leaned forward, moving the hand overtop of the Valkyrie's, entwining their fingers and planting her other hand on the floor near the Fae woman and smiled slightly when Tamsin's pupils dilated further the closer she got. She covered the short distance and hesitated in the tiny space between them for what felt like forever but pressed their lips together when she felt more than heard Tamsin's frustrated sigh. A jolt of warmth spread through Lauren, causing her breath to get stuck in her throat and only regaining control of her faculties when Tamsin's free hand tangled in her hair to press her in impossibly closer and the Valkyrie's tongue moved across the part in her lips before disappearing. She responded by nipping the Dark Fae's lower lip eliciting a pleasantly surprised intake of air and causing their tongues to meet.
Tamsin seemed to only just register their slow descent to the floor and sped things up, pulling Lauren down in order to roll her underneath. Lauren could taste the beer they had been drinking on Tamsin's tongue but didn't mind in the slightest, only pulling away when breathing became an issue. She pushed at the Valkyrie's shoulders breaking their long kiss into several smaller ones as Tamsin pulled back.
"Not that I'm complaining, but what's got into you, doc?" Tamsin asked, leaning her weight on one hand near Lauren's head.
Lauren shrugged in response, admiring the way Tamsin's kiss swollen lips looked more red than normal and she looked slightly flushed. "Well you were bound to win before the power went out and I had to give you something that wasn't science stuff." She smiled as the Valkyrie shifted to hold her weight on her elbows and dipped down to kiss the side of her mouth. "Plus, you brought pizza and beer. You said it yourself, you knew pizza and beer was the way to my heart, right?"
She felt Tamsin's lips curl into a grin as she trailed kisses down the side of her neck. "Well, shit, doc," she murmured against the skin below her jaw. "If I knew all it took was pizza and beer, I'dda done it ages ago."