Disclaimers: All original property is owned by Showcase, and we do not infer that any characters, creations or the concept of 'Lost Girl' are our property and the following fan fiction has been written purely for entertainment purposes only.
Pairings: Bo/Lauren Set directly after our story "Faeral", the third story in an AU plot line.
Rating: M (Contains scenes of violence, sexuality and nudity)
Faery Tale: Chapter Nine
By: The Rainbowwriters
A seemingly short few hours later, the scene inside the club house was unusual to say the least. Kenzi was sat at Lauren's work desk, the double hinged lamp angled to shed its light specifically over her shoulder onto the thick book she was squinting at. Her feet were up on the white surface, leaning on Lauren's 'in' tray, her fluffy slippers wiggling back and forth in rhythm to whatever song she was listening to on her oversized headphones as she read.
In contrast, Bo was in the kitchen peeling potatoes in the sink while frowning and cursing at the frying pan nearby. It was simmering on the stove, spitting and hissing occasionally in answer to her, sending splatters of its contents onto the other hotplates and the worktop along side of the stove. Over her usual tight leather outfit, she had white apron with bright red letters that read 'kiss the cook' across her breasts. It was actually a good thing that she'd put the covering on, as it seemed to have more food on it than was in the pan.
"Is there going to be anything coming out of your kitchen Chef Ramsie other than F-Bombs or do I phone for takeout?" Kenzi pushed off her earphones, having to take a break from the enormous book of rules that she was reading before she went insane.
Of course the sight of her best friend trying to be domestic in the kitchen begged to be videoed and put up on YouTube for millions to enjoy Bo's strings of colourful curses. If only it wouldn't break one of the clauses of her contract she'd have already taken out her phone.
"The recipe lied." Bo huffed as she turned away from the sink and stalked towards her best friend. She plucked the cook book she'd been trying to work from up off the island as she walked by. "This is supposed to be a level two recipe, level two." She stressed angrily. "That is like a level fifty." She tossed the book at Kenzi over the desk top with another loud huff.
"Not that I'm great at this either but what is it supposed to be?" Kenzi picked up the open book, trying to look at the recipe Bo was attempting but she found that a clump of pages were stuck together by a blackish brown goo. "Are you sure this is a cookbook and not one of Lauren's fae chemistry manuals?" She asked a bit worried by what she was seeing seeping over the pages.
"Yes it's been here all the time you and I have." Bo objected. "You brought it with you." She pointed out and then reached out to snatch it from the younger woman, snapping it closed and turning it to face the cover to her best friend.
In large block letters it read 'Dishes from the Homeland. 365 recipes for food'.
Kenzi couldn't help but start hysterically laughing, and she pointed one hand at the book and then slapped the desk top a few times lightly as she continued to chuckle.
"Bo, I got that from my Great Aunt, she brought that book over with her when she fled Europe for the 'New Land'." Kenzi kept laughing knowing that while she'd been a darling, her Great Aunt Olga had been as crazy as they came. It never had dawned on the sweet woman when she'd given Kenzi the book and told her the long story about its travel with her that it was in English and stated on an inside page that it was a 'translated' version of an old cook book printed in New York. "I keep it for sentimental value not for actual cooking. A whole chapter of that book is on a dozen different ways to cook an entire sheep head."
"WHAT!" Bo snatched the book back again and flipped it open to her page, pointing at the list of ingredients. "I thought when the recipe called for hedgehog it was just a European word for hamburger meat."
Kenzi started to laugh even more hysterically as she moved around and hugged her best friend, her whole body shaking from the amusement she felt. Not hugging her back, Bo threw the book at the couch.
"No, they mean hedgehog... little hedgehog... dead, skinned stuck in your soup." Kenzi continued to giggle as she made it clear to Bo that the recipe meant exactly what it said. "You were going to serve us hedgehog you big spender." She pulled back playfully slapping at Bo's body. "You must have slept with a lot of soldiers to get the ration tickets for that or set your traps real early in the morning."
"You come from weirder people than I do, and I'm fae." Bo shook her head and stalked back to the stove. "Hearty stew, the recipe was called Hearty Stew." She defended her choice. "There was no mention of the little prickly contents until the second line." She switched off the burner and picked up the pan. "I'm calling it."
"Pour us some wine and I'll figure out what to order." Kenzi tried to soothe her laughter and watched as Bo dumped it into the sink. "So are you going to tell me how your visit with Dyson went or are you going to unleash that on Lauren when she gets here?" She pulled open the 'take out menu' drawer and selected a few to choose from for the night.
"I'm not going to unleash anything on Lauren especially as we'll probably be spending the evening packing her stuff." Bo sighed as she moved to sit down heavily on the couch. "It was horrible." The succubus let out a lungful of air and shook her head.
"I do multi-topic conversations." Kenzi moved over and crawled over the back of the couch to sit next to her. "First, forget packing, spend the whole time enjoying yourselves. We can pack her stuff tomorrow and bring it over to her. Secondly, yeah I get that, I didn't ask in the car because you seemed strung out enough. But he seemed..." She stopped herself. "Almost... like old Dyson."
"He did." Bo agreed nodding. "But that doesn't exactly help, it doesn't change what happened." She admitted one of the big issues she had found herself facing when she'd seen him. "It doesn't change what I see when I look at him, what I feel when I think about what happened." She looked at her best friend with a frown.
"It doesn't." Kenzi assured her that what she was feeling was totally hers to feel, anyway she wanted or needed. After all Kenzi had seen enough of what had gone on first hand to know how bad it was by the time Bo finished it. "I told him that was one of the things he was going to have to be cool with was letting you and well everyone deal with. He might not remember but we lived it, especially you and Lauren. I told him there wasn't going to be any easy pass, because he'd been a bad bad dog." She tried to at least make Bo realize she wasn't somehow overreacting or acting outside of the expected.
"Yeah that's the one thing old fairy stories never tell you isn't it, how the happily ever after really goes." Bo shook her head.
"You hang around me too much, you're getting cynical." Kenzi moved closer and put her arm around her best friend's shoulders. "When he gets released, and we know he will since he is a good dog now again... and we arrive at the Dal and he's there, we deal. We roll like we always do senorita, top down and full out." She made a motion off into the imaginary sunset.
"Isn't that what Thelma and Louise did?" Bo frowned at her best friend.
"Yes, but we're going to make sure the road doesn't end in a cliff." Kenzi laughed tightly. "You'll work it out Bo, you'll deal when you have to deal, you always do and Lauren, I think when faced with him in the future..." She stressed the idea that that particular meeting shouldn't take place anytime in the near future. "She'll deal like Lauren deals; be professional, take precautions, remember she has you to hold and make it better."
"But she doesn't." Bo countered shaking her head as she turned out of Kenzi's arm to look at her. "And that meeting that should be eons away could be any time because Hale wants to keep her at the compound." The succubus' stress level almost visibly notched up.
"If I know Dyson, he isn't going to let a chance meeting happen at the compound..." Kenzi began to counter her counter but was cut off.
"I'm not talking about Dyson, I'm talking about Lauren." Bo shook her head. "She's already been through his results with a fine tooth comb because she knows I'm worried about him, just how long is it going to be before that brain of hers pushes for her to just get it over with and face him." The brunette spelled out the blatantly likely fact. "She's not the ignore it and it will go away type Kenz." Bo shook her head more.
"Damn her doctor hotpants brain." Kenzi had to agree with Bo immediately, totally seeing how the assessment of how Lauren would deal would be exactly as outlined. She was actually proud of Bo for having thought things out enough to realize how the blonde would react to the hidden pressure to 'get things over with'. Except Kenzi added to herself that a big part of Lauren's reason for getting it over with, would be because she didn't want it to be a problem for Bo.
"I just know she's not ready." Bo added as she leaned back against the couch cushions shaking her head still as she lingered on the topic.
"Then you need to take a small chuck of enjoyment time tonight and make it clear to her that you don't want her to face off with him yet. That you want to be there when she does." Kenzi put in immediately with a soft frown. "There's a good chance she won't push herself if she knows you don't want her too."
"Or there's the chance she'll think I'm an over bearing controlling girlfriend, when we not even in that stage of a relationship." Bo admitted to her best friend the quandary she was in.
"Huh? You so are, you went away together, you've been playing footsies on the couch for hours on end, you so are, whether you've said it or not." Kenzi shook her head.
"Kenzi, we're not." Uncharacteristically Bo cut Kenzi off and frowned deeply."We've talked about it, and Lauren has very specific lines and definitions about things, levels in relationships and we're not at that level." The succubus underlined the important distinction. "She's not ready for it, not so soon after Nadia."
"Nadia, right." The younger woman seemed almost slapped by the remembered information, having in a way totally pushed the woman to the back of her mind. The whole thing had been so tragically sad she didn't like to think about it.
"Exactly, think about it Kenz. I mean if I were Lauren, legitimately I think I'd be a basket case right now." Bo sighed hard. "First there was the whole cursed Nadia thing, then the whole awake thing, then the whole me having to..." She paused remembering that horrible night. "Then the venom issue, then the being killed, then the being brought back, then the being kidnapped and then being stalked to be used as a sex toy and punching bag by a pre-pubescent wolf, while all the while your entire future lies in the hands of a twenty two year old part time professional party guest, who has the power over you getting your freedom or being cursed to a lifetime of slavery." She breathed out. "I don't know how she even gets out of bed."
Kenzi really did try to take in all that Bo was saying, tried to sum up the absolute mountain of evidence that suggested the blonde shouldn't get out of bed in the morning, hell she should make a date with a handgun but then still looking at her best friend she smiled a sad smile.
"She gets out of bed the same way you did when you didn't know what you were, but you knew you'd killed someone the night before. She just gets out of bed, and deals with what she can." Kenzi summed up actually trying to make Bo see the two of them were kinda similar in a way. "The same way she did all those mornings before you Bo, when all she had was Nadia in a bubble and a lifetime of slavery." She reached out again to touch her best friend's arm. "A big part of the reason she gets out of bed right now is you baby doll. Because when she's with you, all the rest of that shit goes away for awhile and the stuff that doesn't, well I know Lauren believes like I do that you'll be there in any way you can to help."
Bo closed her eyes for a moment before she turned and looked over her shoulder at the clock in the kitchen with a frown to see that it was seven thirty four.
"She should be here already." The succubus pushed off the couch undoing the bow on the back of the apron as she stood, she pulled it off over her head and tossed it at the sink. She headed straight to get her phone and speed dialled the blonde's number.
Kenzi knew she couldn't actually do anything to help, the world just seemed piled up against her best friend at the moment. She just watched Bo pace around staring angrily at the phone, clearly the call having not been picked up before Bo dialled again.
"She's not a law breaker.." Kenzi pointed out. "It's a three hundred dollar fine if you're caught talking on a cell phone."
Bo flashed Kenzi an 'I don't care, she should answer' look just as the door to the club house swung open. In response to the noise, Bo's skittered across the floor to check and breathed a sigh of relief when she saw it was Lauren.
"Hi, you're here." Bo grinned at her, trying to stick her phone in her back pocket.
"I know, I'm half an hour late I'm sorry." Lauren apologized pulling her jacket off while moving straight to Bo, pressing her lips against the brunette's cheek almost in an entrance out of a 1950's sitcom. "The traffic was hell." She added moving to hang her coat up and take off her boots.
"We were just brainstorming on what to order in for food." Kenzi piped up from the couch smiling at the Doctor, remembering the list of unfair crap that Bo had just given her in her head and comparing it to the put together, slightly flustered but otherwise okay looking blonde that stood before her. It really was impressive how resilient she was. "I'm saying Dumpling City and Bo is pushing for Italian. What are you in the mood for?"
"Well pasta is always a win with me, but the two aren't that far apart, I could pick up if you like." Lauren smiled between Bo and Kenzi with a soft shrug.
"No, it's cool, I'll order delivery but..." Kenzi got up and headed to the stairs. "I think I have a coupon upstairs." She excused herself knowing how high strung Bo was at the moment. She would order dinner, which with any luck, after a little talking and Bo hopefully sharing what was going on in her head, the other two women in the house would be too busy together upstairs to eat until much later.
"She'll look after it." Bo agreed moving over closer to Lauren. "How are you doing?" She asked reaching up to tuck a lock of blonde hair behind Lauren's ear, her desire to be close to the blonde suddenly a little overwhelming with all the emotion still swirling from her conversation with Kenzi and the rest of the day catching up with her.
"Tired." Lauren admitted moving closer to the succubus without urging. She rested her hand on the brunette's hip. "The Lab's been chaotic."
"Well there is nothing chaotic here, well other than Kenzi." Bo let her body settle into a loose embrace with the blonde. "I could run you a bath." She offered wanting to do whatever she could to make Lauren's time away from the lab enjoyable.
"No, I want to stay conscious for a while thank you." Lauren chuckled softly as she looked into Bo's eyes, the soft laugh evening out, her features changing into a frown. "What's wrong?" She asked picking up on the traces of tension in Bo's body and features.
"Nothing, now that you're here." Bo answered first with a soft smile, but she could tell it wouldn't be enough to abate Lauren's concern. "I was just talking about things with Kenzi, about all the crap with the light, and about how I can't stand having to give them an inch because they have rules."
"I know." Lauren moved closer still and actually rested her head on Bo's shoulder in what was almost an odd move for the blonde. "But to be honest Bo, I'm slightly tired of fighting all the time against forces that I can't win. In the end its just four walls, it doesn't change what we feel, what we know." She nuzzled against skin and leather.
"Nothing could change that, not location, not anything the light fae can do." Bo encircled the blonde with her arms and held her tightly.
"By the way Hale asked me to thank you for information you sent back to him from the docks this afternoon." Lauren stayed in the embrace for a long moment before easing away to wander over to her work desk. Obviously curious as to why it looked a little like a bomb site, with books all over it and the lamp at an obscure angle. "Let me guess, Kenzi has found herself a work station." She asked Bo with a chuckle, sliding out a piece of paper from her 'in' tray that had an almost prefect boot mark on it.
"She's been busy all evening reading the rules of fae investigations, apparently she has to read it to make her investigation valid. She's sure it's a stall tactic." Bo gave a chuckle back. "When I asked she blamed that on Mr. Kickers, but she did put on some slippers after that."
"He wears a size seven? Surprisingly large for a stuffed animal that is in its entirety nine inches tall." Lauren summed up with a bright smile.
"Mr. Kickers is a mystery." Bo held up her hands in mock surrender. "Is it okay? I can tell her to stay off if you want."
"It's fine, just promise me you won't let her drop the microscope on the floor or use the digital scales as a special seat or dance floor for Mr. Kickers." Lauren chuckled moving from the desk to sit on the couch, immediately leaning back against the cushions. "You know I never thought I would love this couch." She admitted shaking her head more to herself than anyone else. "Considering the lumber support it offers is less than ideal."
"Lauren..." Bo could hear the strange tone that accompanied her sitting down to join the blonde on the couch. "Can we talk about one more serious thing before we just relax and chill out for as long as you can stay?" She made the request in a soft voice.
"Well I was planning on staying the night, but if that's a prob..." Lauren's eyes followed her.
"All night?" Bo's face literally lit up and for the moment at least any concern she had disappeared. "That's perfect and you know it is." She leaned sideways in her seat to smile at the blonde, feeling a little like it was Christmas morning all of a sudden.
"Well..." Lauren did roll her eyes a little. "I was hoping you wouldn't be cursing or running for the door. Now..." She let her face fall into a more even neutral expression. "What did you want to talk about, that is obviously important and serious. Or shall I guess?" The blonde turned to sit a little sideways on the couch cushion, leaning her back on the arm of the couch. Bo just looked at her to continue. "Dyson." The blonde summed up her response in the short name.
"Yes." Bo was almost not surprised that Lauren had guessed it already. "With you having to spend more time at the compound, I... I don't want to sound overbearing but I don't want you to see him. For any reason, there are enough other people who can look after him. I don't want you anywhere near him, until you are completely ready and I'm there with you to face him."
Lauren didn't say anything for a long moment and it was hard for Bo to glean any idea of what it was that the blonde might be thinking from the look on her face.
"Did you decided that before or after visiting him this morning?" Lauren asked trying to keep her voice neutral but there was a slight edge to her tone as she reached up and tucked her hair behind her ear. "Hale told me that you and Kenzi had both gone to see him when I asked for the evening off and permission to stay here for the night."
"Okay, I officially hate the new Ash, I was going to tell you." Bo underlined immediately.
"Dyson is my patient Bo, any change in his behaviour or health, mentally, physically or just his general demeanour is important, especially if it has an explanation." Lauren replied softly. "The technician who administered his meal time medications and did his observations this afternoon was concerned about him. I mentioned it to Hale as part of my summary of the day and he offered the information as a possible explanation." She explained how the course of events had played out. She then sighed softly. "I wish you had talked to me before going to see him." She looked across at Bo there was an edge of disappointment to her voice.
"Lauren it wasn't planned. I... I just went to talk to Hale and he mentioned Dyson and it got me thinking..." Bo began to explain how it had all gone down, having no intention of hiding any of it from the blonde. "Then it felt odder that I wasn't going to see him when I knew I had to some time, and I needed to see him to prove to myself what everyone was saying about him being different was true, that he was himself again and no long a threat."
"And never in that thinking did it occur to you that I wouldn't want you to go in there alone? Without me to support you? I was five minutes away in the lab Bo." Lauren countered softly.
Bo locked her jaw for a moment, clearly feeling the truth ringing through Lauren's disappointment and now wishing that she had done just that but of course she was Bo, and sometimes Bo didn't think well on her feet.
"I guess..." She tried to explain herself, not in with just a cheesy apology but to actually explain herself. "I didn't think and I was so focused on confronting him, proving to him that he didn't win, that all the craziness hadn't beat us." She watched Lauren just nod for a moment.
"Well that doesn't matter now, and you don't have to worry because I am in no hurry to see him. I have a dedicated medical team around me who I trust, they are more than capable of taking care of Dyson and his needs directly." The blonde summed up her stance on the subject. "The accommodations Hale has assigned me are in the residential zone of the compound and not anywhere near the restricted zone."
"Good." Bo had to nod her happiness at the news but she still frowned. For a moment she toyed with the idea of further trying to explain herself but it dawned on her how tired Lauren looked, and talking about her feelings really didn't need to be a priority right now. "I'm sorry if I don't think sometimes, when I should, I wish I had now."
"Two different people never see the same thing the same way Bo, that's just the nature of the world." Lauren gave a soft shrug of her shoulder. "I really need to change out of these clothes." She added pushing up off the couch and heading towards the stairs. "I'll just be a few minutes." She smiled softly at the brunette before she disappeared up them.
-x-
