AN: Happy Easter!
XIV
It's around 1 am and Tamsin has had enough.
But not necessarily enough of Trick's drinks. She spent the last thirty minutes trying to decide whether the edges of her consciousness are blurred and hazy enough for this, or whether she should suck it up and bear the sensation of watching Bo and Dyson a bit longer. The latter oscillates between bordering on barfing and choking on her drink because it's so damn ridiculous. It's a balance she hasn't quite figured out, but she'll have to interrupt Bo's train wreck of a plan right now nonetheless. Tamsin would be the idiot who'd have to clean the mess afterwards, so no, thank you very much.
It's not exactly anger that's bothering her, but frustration. She's brimming with it. Every time Tamsin shoots a glance at her partner and Bo at the bar a few feet away from her, she feels like rolling her eyes until she can see her brain cells die.
Tamsin is annoyed because of what Bo is obviously – stupidly – trying to do, despite having tons of experience with stumbling over her own emotions, and secondly because Dyson really should realize it as well, but doesn't. In a fluid motion Tamsin empties her glass without taking her eyes off them, stands up and straightens her jacket.
Bo doesn't even see her coming until she's right behind her. Tamsin's boots thump on the wooden floor, she drags them just a little – the alcohol hasn't had enough time to circulate in her system yet, as she waltzes over to Dyson and his surprisingly doe-eyed ex-girlfriend. Tamsin rolls her eyes once more. She can hear Bo snort, about one of Dyson's stupid jokes. Not that he's particularly humorous to begin with when he's sober, but the beer makes it even worse.
The federal agent places her hand on Bo's arm and almost physically forces it off Dyson's, with such a sweet smile it looks like she'd snap her hand in two if Bo wouldn't move this very second. Dyson's eyes send daggers at her. She's used to it, though, and he'll survive one minute without Bo. That's what he should be used to.
"Can I talk to you for a sec?" Tamsin asks, not bothering to wait for an answer. Her fingers dig into Bo's arm.
"Ouch," Bo complains, her voice slightly slurred, while she glides off the barstool, dragged behind by Tamsin.
"Shut up," Tamsin snaps back, marching her out of the Dal. Hopefully fresh air will help to clear her friend's head.
Trick sends a doubtful glance in their direction, polishing a glass, but he knows his granddaughter. They might not have had the best family life imaginable, but they've built a trust and understanding his more than proud of, given the past. If he's honest, he'd preferred her staying with Dyson, but Trick is the last person to give relationship advice. Not that Bo would have accepted his reasoning anyway – that's his granddaughter to him. But given enough time, she'll come around. He smiles reassuringly at Dyson who waves him over for the next round, still scowling.
Creepy guy from before is still hanging around like a particularly obstinate tick, straightening up immediately as he sees the two women walking past his table. Bo doesn't even notice him. Tamsin sends a death glare at him that wipes the dirty grin right off his face again and sends him shrinking back into the corner he crawled out of. Bo doesn't see it because about a second ago she stopped paying attention to where she's going in general.
Because just before Tamsin pushes the door open and Bo through it, her friend manages to look over her shoulder.
Lauren is still in deep conversation with her friend, it seems. Crystal's back faces the rest of the room. She is turned completely towards Lauren, laughing amiably about something Lauren hasn't even understood properly. Rumour has it that Crystal almost started a relationship with a graduate doing a master in economics, but it seems like she's not looking for commitment after all. Lauren is not going to ask, though, that'll just lead to inappropriate innuendos on Crystal's side. Kenzi is sitting at the other end of the table, talking to them, but she grins too broadly without the light fully reaching her bright blue eyes, and her friend can see clearly that she's hiding something. Maybe disappointment. Her eyes have been darting around the bar the whole night, without paying much attention to anyone else. Lauren guesses that Kenzi had been hoping to see that friend of hers she's met a couple of times in the Dal, but he's apparently not here. She is kind of happy, though, that Kenzi hasn't picked up on how tense she's been feeling herself. Breathing out a sigh, she swirls around the content of her glass. She attempts to focus on her own table, not on Bo and the man she's talking to. Lauren feels ridiculous, ignoring her the whole night. But there's nothing she could have done. It's just that during the whole flirting with that man Lauren could see, out the corner of her eye, that Bo was shooting glances on her instead. Lauren bites her lip, and tries to concentrate on Crystal at her side.
But as Bo's gaze falls on her once more, Lauren feels something tingling on her skin. Her eyes are inevitably drawn up by it, like there's a magnet somewhere in the room specifically forged to act on her DNA and nothing else.
Just for the fraction of a heartbeat, their eyes meet. The tiny line that has appeared between Bo's eyebrows three or four drinks ago – unnoticed by her ex, just like so many other things – gives way to a softness in her gaze Lauren can't quite place. It's a veil falling away. Bo is a master at building walls, but Lauren simply has that effect on her.
And just like that, the rest of the room seems to fall away too, like something shifted in her vision and finally makes way for the only thing that really matters. There's a bar full of people in between them, blurry faces, fragments of conversations, laughter, music, even the scent of old wood and strong drinks lingers in the air around them. And Bo blanks out everything else apart from how, across the whole room and everything in it, she can still somehow see the golden dapples in Lauren's eyes.
Subconsciously, Lauren's fingers tighten so firmly around her glass her knuckles turn white. Her heart misses a beat or two. It's lucky Crystal didn't get her any more of the red wine in one of the fragile glasses. The urge to stand up is growing overwhelmingly strong.
Bo tries to open her mouth, maybe to say something, and reality catches up with them again. She sees Dyson at the bar, her grandfather, Lauren's blonde and black-haired friends, and the way Lauren's eyes are flickering.
Nonetheless, it has been enough for Bo to nearly miss a step. She'd have tripped over her own feet hadn't Tamsin been dragging her along.
A gust of wind rushes through the door as Tamsin throws it open, and tugs at their clothes and hair, playing softly with Bo's black curls while it blows them around her head. Her dark eyes are still boring into Lauren's, despite of the sudden, irritating coldness. The need to jump up and run after her floods Lauren's system.
But then the moment is over, and Bo and Tamsin are through the door.
Outside it's still raining. Fat and heavy splats fall down on both of them, blurring the faint light of the street lamps and muffling the scraps of conversations following the two women out of the Dal. Somewhere in the distance thunder rumbles, once, low and so far away that they can barely see the lightning cracking the sky in half. The air is thick with moisture, tasting like it's going to pour for the whole night. As they step away a little from the door and further down the street the sound of water drumming on the concrete drowns everything else completely, even the soft music blasting out of the jukebox inside. Bo's eyes adjust faster to the semidarkness than her mind to what just happened. They've just exchanged a glance, after all. It's probably the booze.
Tamsin doesn't really mind the weather but Bo wraps her arms around herself, shivering a little and wishing for her jacket. After a moment of calm breathing she eyes Tamsin suspiciously, and with a hint of anger. Bo can see that something's bothering her friend, but normally she'd be confident enough to talk to her and Dyson at once, and secondly the blonde has her hair in a low bun tightly in her neck, so of course she's not going to be the one who's getting her hair ruined by the rain.
"So, what's gotten into you tonight?" Bo inquires haughtily.
Tamsin turns around to her, cocking an eyebrow. "What the hell do you think you're you doing, Bo?
"Excuse me?"
Tamsin takes a deep breath, tries to stay calm, and kind of fails. "I don't want to, Bo, but if you don't stop right now what you've been doing in there, I swear to god, I'll hit you in the face again."
Bo's jaw doesn't quite drop to the floor but its close. A second later she blinks, and breathes out a chuckle. Maybe it's the alcohol in her blood. "Yeah? Didn't work last time either, did it? I don't think you're fast enough."
Tamsin gives her one of those threateningly blinding smirks of hers that remind everyone in a thirty yards radius that she's carrying a gun and would probably shoot you right between the shoulder blades if you tried to run. Still smirking, she takes a slow step towards Bo. Her friend nearly takes one back.
"Bo, let me be totally clear," Tamsin says, "get away from Dyson."
"I don't think that's your decision."
"Are you fucking kidding me? You are not doing this again!" Tamsin explodes. "Jesus Christ, not that there were many to begin with but is there any sensible brain cell left in your head? How the hell did they allow you into college if you can't handle your own shit?"
"Calm down, Tamsin," Bo snaps back. "Dyson is a grown man, he can decide just fine what's alright with him and what not."
"Have you actually looked at him? He's drooling every time he's in the same room with you. You could throw a stick, say 'fetch', and he'd bring it back to you."
Bo crosses her arms, looking a bit taken aback. "I don't know why that's so important to you. It's none of your business."
Tamsin pinches the bridge of her nose to prevent herself from taking Bo by the shoulders and shake her thoroughly. "I swear to god if you're even thinking about implying that I'm jealous I will throttle you."
Bo raises her eyebrows.
"Dyson is my partner, I don't want him moping around for another month because you've been raising his hopes, but more importantly –"
"I haven't been doing anything like that! I was very clear-"
Tamsin cuts her right off again. "Bo, seriously, I couldn't care less about what you do or don't do with Dyson, it is entirely your business, but we both know that this is not about him."
Bo opens her mouth to reply, doesn't know what to say, and shuts it again.
Indignantly Tamsin continues "I really don't know why you've been behaving like this in the last few weeks. No girl is worth messing up your life. You of all people should know that."
"Hey," Bo starts again, her voice a tone darker. "Don't say anything about Lauren."
"This is incredible, Bo, you show the emotional range of a three year old whose balloon has flown off because she let go of it. I thought you earned your money with reading people!"
Bo folds her arms on her chest. "Excuse me?"
"He was about to propose to you!"
"I – what?"
Tamsin shifts her weight from one foot to the other, now knowing how to continue. She's manoeuvred herself into dangerous territory, stuff she doesn't know how and doesn't want to talk about. But Bo won't get it any other way. "Before you broke up with him he was seriously toying with the idea of marrying you, so shut up about this grown man nonsense. Of course he knows objectively that he can't expect any real emotional commitment from you anymore, but he'll still hurt if you keep on playing with him. He's Dyson." Tamsin scrunches her nose before she continues. "And I know you still care enough about him to feel really, really bad if you hurt him, unintentionally or not. Also, you're supposed to work together now, for god's sake. So just, stop."
This is actually knocking the breath out of Bo's lungs. For a second or two the delay between what she heard Tamsin speak and actually processing it kept her in balance. But now that she begins to realize what her friend is telling her the alcohol seems to be flooding out of her body, being replaced by another, decidedly less comfortable dizziness. She has to bend forward a little, press her hands to her thighs, and concentrate on her breathing. "Shit, Tamsin, why didn't you tell me earlier?"
"None of my business."
Bo straightens again. The idea that Dyson actually contemplated spending the rest of his life with Bo seems utterly surreal. But the fact that he did brings a little reality back into Bo's own thoughts. She has been so invested in the little things that she'd like to do with Lauren, like going to the cinema, show her Bo's favourite places in the city, maybe even travel a bit, but that's it. A mixture of night life and domestic bliss and not thinking about the future at all.
She never even begun to imagine that there's actually –in reality, not just hypothetically somewhere far, far away – a life waiting for the blonde. One for Bo too, for that matter.
And Bo has to consider seriously whether she wants to be a part of Lauren's. Well, of course she wants to, but in which way. She could easily cause a lot of damage to Lauren's later life if she isn't careful right now. Yes, they could somehow dodge repercussions and Hale plus his mess, but Bo is not sure whether the costs are worth it. That whole Hale thing is really idiotic, but her own responsibility. She doesn't want to pull Lauren into anything. Most of all, she doesn't want her to give up anything for her.
Bo is beginning to understand why seeing Lauren with other students, her friends, hurt and why she reacted so extremely. It's not so much because Bo felt excluded or left behind, not at all, but because that kind of thing lies in her past. She was one of the most extreme partygoers in her year, admittedly, and Tamsin has seen her do things she'd rather like her to forget ever happened. Moreover, Tamsin has watched her do things to people. Stuff Bo is not proud of, but she's moved past it, and hopefully they could too. Now she's fully working, earning her own money, and tries to be as independent and not-fucked-up as possible. Of course Lauren isn't the train wreck Bo has been a few years ago, and she goes to much less clubs and parties than her professor did in her time. That doesn't change the fact, though, that the blonde has lectures in the next morning. She lives in a dorm house and has a completely different circle of friends. She has life to plan, not yet to actually live it.
During classes Bo is standing in the front while Lauren is one of many faces glued to her lips. Still, she is the most important one for Bo, twice during the last classes they had together last week Bo caught herself craning her neck while she entered the room, holding her breath until she found the blonde in the assembled crowd. She is so much more than a student to Bo. And yet they're on different sides of the room.
There are, quite literally, worlds between them.
Bo is reaching out, though. There are aeons between them and Bo is bridging the distance with every smile she gives the blonde. But she cannot allow herself to forget or neglect that the distance still exists, somewhere between them, and there is an icy grip around her chest forming right now. It feels like she's trying to breath under water, in a frozen lake. By now, having spent so much time with Lauren, it is easy to say that she never was just a student. It's harder to remember that she still is one, though. Bo's thoughts are spinning circles in her head. She has no idea what to do.
She wants – needs – Lauren so badly that this line of thought is physically painful. She's aching.
Bo takes a deep breath, listening to the rain steadily drumming on the street. By now she's soaked by she couldn't care less, she doesn't even feel it. Her eyes focus back on Tamsin who is staring at her with something like concern in her look.
"He actually wanted to ask me to marry him?" Bo asks.
"He had a ring."
"Fuck."
"He showed it to me once when he was really, really drunk," Tamsin sneers. "It belonged to his mom or something. Don't worry he didn't even buy it for you specifically."
"He wanted to give me his mother's ring," Bo says disbelieving. "Oh my god."
Tamsin lifts one eyebrow. "You really never noticed?"
"That he wanted to marry me? Hell no! I'd have left the country!"
"That's probably why he didn't propose right away."
"You really should have told me-"
In that second, the door they've left through a few minutes ago opens again. Light pours out on the dark street, illuminating a silhouette Bo knows all too well. And then there's the flutter in her stomach again. She'd begin to feel like one of Pavlov's best dogs if she allowed herself to think about it. The pressure on her chest magnifies.
Lauren leaves the Dal, looking hastily up and down the street. The rash movement of her head and the wind makes her golden hair dance around her neck while it cascades down her back. She bites her lip and tugs a strand behind her ear, and looks so agonizingly gorgeous that Bo has to stop mid-sentence, forgetting what she wanted to say.
Tamsin sees that Bo is looking over her shoulder and turns around to see what's gotten Bo's attention this time. That's the moment Lauren spots them.
They stand like that for a second or two, frozen to the ground while the water is trying to wash away the world around them. Bo is staring at the blonde student, Tamsin as well, her expression blank but her green eyes intense, and Lauren looks right back at them, her eyes skipping over Tamsin's face to find Bo's. Then the door falls shut again, with a decisive sounding thump, and all three of them flinch.
"Well," Tamsin drawls before anyone else can say something, "I'll leave you to it," and struts past the student.
Out of instinct Lauren makes a step aside to let her pass. The blonde with the stormy green eyes doesn't exactly ooze coldness, or trouble, but she's radiating that kind of confidence Lauren has a lot of respect for – and usually keeps her distance from.
It doesn't help that Tamsin focuses so hard on Lauren she's almost glaring at her as she's walking past her. But she's less threatening than she could be, which the part of Bo that is not utterly fixed on Lauren notices appreciatively.
Tamsin glides through the door, and leaves them in semidarkness once more.
"Uhm, hi," Bo offers, breathless all out of a sudden. She's not sure her voice is carrying all the way to Lauren – the blonde stands just a few steps away from her but Bo's tone had been much more timid than she intended it to be. Her head is swirling with so many different things already, a lot of booze among them, and it gets increasingly hard to get her body to do exactly what she wants.
Lauren narrows her eyes a little, frowns and points over her shoulder at the door Tamsin has just vanished through. "I didn't mean to interrupt anything…"
"You haven't," Bo says quickly and takes a step towards her.
Lauren looks at her properly for the first time, and promptly gets a dry throat.
Bo is absolutely soaked. And gorgeous. Unfairly so, Lauren thinks, biting her lip while she fails to tear her eyes away from Bo's radiant smile at her. By now Lauren thought she'd gotten used to it. But the dimple in Bo's cheek manages to get under her skin every single time. Or maybe it's always been there since she saw it first.
But there's something else in her eyes as well, something Lauren doesn't know.
"I'm actually –"
"I just –"
Both start to speak and stop at the same time. They begin to laugh softly. It sounds insecure on Lauren's part, and there's almost a hint of melancholy in Bo's.
Lauren draws one hand through her open hair and shoves the other into the pocket of her grey jeans. "Go ahead."
"Okay," Bo breathes, "I just wanted to say I'm glad I can speak to you alone."
"Well, yes, you were kind of occupied by someone else in there," Lauren replies, pointing at the Dal again.
Bo deflates. Visibly. The smile vanishes faster than it came, if that's possible. "That was nothing, really, I just… I don't know what's gotten into me."
Lauren can't help herself but crack a smile. It spreads; she opens her mouth, pauses, and touches her front teeth with her tongue, eyes glinting mischievously.
Bo nearly rolls her eyes but Lauren's expression, especially her parted lips keep Bo's gaze fixed on her face. "Don't say it," she drawls, and the realization that Lauren isn't angry with her lifts a huge weight from her shoulders.
"Well, wouldn't be appropriate right now I guess." Lauren looks away again and leans against the wall. "But anyway, you looked at me so often I'm surprised he didn't notice."
Bo takes a step towards her. "Why are you here?"
"I actually wanted to apologize for earlier today." Lauren avoids her eyes. She runs her finger across the wall, loosening a bit of plaster. "In your office. I sort of overreacted."
Bo bites her lip. "You didn't do anything you should feel sorry for. It was my fault. I shouldn't have gone for you like that. You are right – we have to be careful."
"Sorry for freaking out, though."
"God, Lauren," Bo utters, shaking her head, trying to clear it up, "we haven't seen each other properly for only four days and we already start to mess everything up."
The blonde frowns and folds her arms in front of her chest. "From a rational point of view that is a bad thing to happen. But I kind of stopped thinking reasonably about all of this."
Bo tilts her head to the side and smiles thoughtfully. "That is a pretty bit compliment coming from you."
"You have no idea," Lauren states dryly, and this time Bo does have to laugh. This time it's less bitter, but Lauren can hear that faint note nonetheless, and she doesn't like it. The blonde clears her throat.
"Bo," she says, taking a deep breath, "I followed you outside because I wanted to talk to you. I mean, I didn't even know whether you'd still be here, but I couldn't let you leave tonight without having talked to you."
"I'm here now," Bo replies calmly. "I won't go anywhere unless you want me to."
The rain has turned into a drizzle. It makes it easier for Lauren to read Bo's eyes, and right now she can't look away from the intensity she sees in them. In one breath Lauren rushes out the next sentence. "Last Christmas was the best I've ever had. The time I spent with you was the first time I felt good and happy and alive again in a very long time. And it freaked me out beyond belief. It still does. I have no idea how to handle it."
Lauren's honesty is so overwhelming that Bo actually stop breathing for a second, just listening to what the blonde is admitting. There's a warmth spreading in Bo at her words. If she was smart, she'd stop now. If she was smart, she'd stop, go home, think about everything - and most of all sleep off the alcohol. But that's a profound thing about her - she's never smart when it comes to her own feelings and thoughts.
"I understand that very well," Bo huffs, "And by now you'll probably know that I am a huge idiot."
Lauren lifts one eyebrow, slightly taken aback. Once more she spoke faster than her brain could keep up with but she's happy that she's finally said it. The last few weeks have been better than she ever imagined possible. That's worth fending off Kenzi and the rest.
"Just in case we haven't understood each other clearly, let me say that this –" Bo continues, pointing at Lauren's chest and then at herself "-is much more than an affair to me."
Entropy is a tangible thing, Lauren thinks. One second she imagines she's aware of her own feelings and glad that she figured them out, the next she's pushed off that high horse again, plunging into a very deep whirl of her own confused thoughts and emotions once more. The way Bo's eyes are completely earnest right now, the seriousness and the deep, almost black, brown colour with a luminosity that comes from a place in Bo she can't even remember showing anyone else before, imprints on Lauren's retina.
"To be honest, I still don't know what exactly it is. The one thing I am sure about is that I don't want to lose it. Not because of my stupid, misplaced jealousy, not because of miscommunication, not because you're my student and I am your professor."
"Fine," Lauren breathes and finally peels herself off the wall, "If you keep on saying things like this, I'll stop overthinking everything."
Bo takes another step closer. Her eyes dart down to Lauren's lips and back up to her eyes again. She's on the brink of getting into Lauren's personal space and there's nothing the blonde wants more right now. Bo opens her mouth, "I-"
She doesn't get further. Instead of saying something fairly important, she doubles over, leans to the side, and sneezes twice in a row.
That breaks the spell. Lauren breathes out a laugh, reaching out and placing her hand on Bo's upper arm. "Bless you, Bo, are you alright?"
Bo raises her index finger, eyes still closed, "I think s-" and sneezes again.
"Let's get you out of the rain," Lauren chuckles. "I think you've managed to catch a cold."
Gently she takes her by the hand, Bo's fingers soft and warm and gentle around hers, and attempts to lead her back into the Dal.
"Actually," Bo smiles, the attack finally over, "I think I might just get home straight away."
"Uh, okay." Lauren says, her hand slowly gliding out of Bo's again.
Bo doesn't allow it, though, she intertwines her fingers firmly with Lauren's. "Do you want to come?"
Her smile could coax the sun back from behind the clouds if it wasn't quite some time after midnight.
…
The next day Bo is spending the afternoon out of college. Dyson and Tamsin are working on a new case. It looks really complicated and unfortunately for Bo they want her to profile it. Dyson picked her up at her office and drove her through Boston. Bo knows that he has an extremely expensive motorbike somewhere, but for work he uses one of those huge, black FBI Toyotas with the tinted windows. She felt really awkward, climbing into it at the college. But the thought that it might have sparked a few more rumours about her at school is almost enough to make her laugh.
The crime scene they want to show her is in the outskirts of the city. It's a long way, and she and Dyson spent a long part of it in silence after they ran out of small talk.
But as Dyson pulls up at a little house littered with policemen and yellow tape, Bo can't hold it in anymore.
"Dyson," she begins carefully while he parks the car, "about yesterday…"
"Yes?" His head turns around immediately. Without the motor running in the background the silence is even more awkward.
Bo has to look away. She stares at her hands. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have been… You know… I think I drank a little too much." Her voice trails off.
Dyson tries to look stern but fails, a small grin spreading over his face. "It's okay."
Bo's eyes dart up again. "Really?"
"You do owe me a drink, though."
Bo lifts one eyebrow.
Dyson raises his hands defensively, still grinning, "you were the one who promised me one."
"I think I really had too much."
"No excuses," Dyson replies, opening the door of the car on his side. And then with a little more seriousness "I know you that you were only looking for distraction, Bo. No idea what from, but I enjoyed it anyway. Buy me a drink next weekend."
Bo is climbing on the passenger seat of his car, her jaw set in stone. She shouldn't have said anything. Instead, she changes the topic. "Where exactly are we, anyway?"
Two policemen come towards them, notepads in their hands and stern looks on their faces.
"Evony is pleased about the collaboration so far," Dyson says as he leads Bo towards them. "Now she wants you to look at the really interesting stuff. Trust me, that's the reason why you'll need a drink."
Bo stares blankly at him. "Care to explain?"
"School's out," Dyson grins.