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 to continue after our story "Faethful"
Rating: M (Contains scenes of violence, sexuality and mild nudity)
Faeral: Part Twenty-One
By: The Rainbowwriters.
With the bar closed, the atmosphere at the Dal took on an eerie quality as Bo and Kenzi silently backtracked through the back rooms towards the bar. Nothing could be heard in the other rooms, the main area clearly soundproofed to contain the exuberant music and drunken laughter that often filled the popular way-station.
Bo was in the lead, with Kenzi close behind her as they crept up to the double swinging doors. With a motion to be silent to her best friend, Bo pushed one door open just a sliver to look out into the room beyond trying to get an idea of what was going on beyond.
The first person she saw was Trick. Her grandfather had a long pool cue in his hands and was moving somewhat furtively behind Dyson who was stood in front of the end of the bar. Dyson's focus however was not on the Blood King, but on the bar ahead of him. The reason becoming clear when Bo caught sight of one of Lauren's legs, that was hanging off the wooden bar top.
From the position Lauren was in, draped on the wooden surface, the blonde was quite clearly unconscious. Both of her arms hanging off the sides, and with one leg either side of the fairly narrow wooden bar top.
To Trick's credit, he was making good time with his improvised weapon. While Dyson, for the moment, seemed to be caught up in the thrill of his moment of victory, having gotten this far with such relative ease. He was barefoot and shirtless, though he clearly was still not changing to a complete wolf state.
Feeling her whole body fill with hot rage and intense disgust, Bo turned her head back to look at Kenzi for only a moment. Her bright blue eyes signalling to her best friend that what Kenzi had spelled out was happening, her blue banshee was pushing through again and what was about to happen couldn't be predicted.
The air around the succubus was charged as Bo pushed through the double doors into the bar. Trick being closest and the first to turn his eyes to her, his grip on the weapon going white knuckled when he did. Kenzi was only a step behind her, surveying the scene with intense fear for everyone involved.
"In my grandfather's house." Bo's condemning words came with a deep echo as she moved to close the distance between her and the wolf.
Dyson's whole body whipped around to face her, his yellow eyes meeting and holding her blue ones like two prize fighters staring each other down in the centre of the ring. Engulfed by his own arrogance, he let her approach without making another move, a feral smirk pulling his lips back over his extended teeth. The change in his breathing showed his general pleasure that his mate was now present.
The smirk was quickly pulled off his face, as the moment that Bo was close enough to the bar, her whole body was thrown into a backhanded strike that sent Dyson down from his perch and crashing headfirst through one of the tables five feet away. The arc of his trajectory a clear show of the power that Bo possessed while she was in this heightened state.
For Bo, there was no thinking, the time for thinking and contemplating choices was over. Issues of fault would have to be sorted out later, because all she knew right now was that she was never going to let anyone hurt Lauren. She was never going to let anyone dominate her and force her into any role she didn't choose.
Moving with a speed that rivalled the wolf, Bo didn't even think about following him as he fell. She gave him no time to gather himself within the broken splinters of the table. Reaching down, Bo grabbed him tightly by the back of the neck, even as he finally began to struggle a little to find his footing.
With the elements of momentum and surprise on her side, her intense blue eyes crackled with power. Using this energy, she spun them both around in a quick circle and aiming purposefully she only released her grip on him so he could fly headfirst into one of the structural columns. The intensity of the meeting caused pieces of the decorative wood panelling to sheer off, and the interior beam groaned under the blow.
The wolf's head and neck compressed and then his whole body bounced sideways from the excessive force.
"This must be how you want it Dyson." Bo felt the words spit out of her mouth in anger, the magnitude of her own anger starting to scare her deep inside, but she was on a path she couldn't stop now.
Power coursed through every inch of her body, and she moved to where he had finally come to a stop in a heap on the floor. The sight of Kenzi hugging the wall to get to behind the bar, trying to get to Lauren's still unmoving form, crushed any hints of doubt that may have been creeping into her psyche.
On the floor in front of her, Dyson tried to get his arms underneath him, coming up to his hands and knees as he fought with the concussive damage. Before he could push up any further, Bo lined up and kicked him squarely in the ribs. The hard blow making a hollow sound, as Dyson's body was pushed back a few feet. She lined up and took another kick, the whole process repeated a half dozen times as each subsequent kick drove him backwards, so she could line up another.
When the wolf finally didn't try to rise up again on instinct, Bo stomped her way over, and dug one knee into his back to pin him down.
"The only way you are going to understand..." She dug the fingers on both her hands into his already bloody hair, her nails cutting into the soft flesh of the scalp underneath. Pulling his head back, she torqued it as far as it would go towards her and then forward with all the strength she had into the wooden floor. The blow causing a loud boom to echo through the bar.
"Bo!" Kenzi finally screamed out the Succubus' name as she watched blow after blow. Blood started to pour from the wolf's mouth and nose, and Dyson didn't even seem able to move his arms to do more then swim a little against the hardwood floor in desperation. "Bo, you don't want to kill him, remember?" She urged desperately, the blonde on the bar top just finally starting to rouse from whatever blow Dyson had used to immobilize her.
"I can kill you Dyson." Bo leaned down, pulling his head up so she could hiss the words into his ear. "Do you understand that?"
"Yes." Dyson barely managed an audible groan, spitting blood as he did so.
"I am a succubus, you are a wolf." Bo felt her arms twitch with effort as she tried to keep herself from bashing him another time, to answer the intense rage she felt so awash with. "You do not choose who I am with, you never get to choose who I am with." She twisted his head to turn it towards to the bar where Kenzi was helping Lauren sit up. "She is mine, this ends now, do you understand?"
"Yes." Dyson repeated the simple acknowledgement, more blood flowing over his chin.
Bo bit down on her tongue, not wanting to repeat any of the other instructions that were racing through her brain. Releasing her grip on him Bo slowly she pulled away and moved to sit down on the floor nearby, her breathing coming hard and fast as if she had been running. Every one of her senses on high alert just waiting for him to stir or move, to try something else.
From where he had been standing Trick put down his improvised weapon, and made his way to Bo crouching down and reaching to put his hand lightly on her arm, his facing showing all the seriousness and concern he had over what he had just witnessed.
"Bo?" He said her name softly, watching the way that even now she was struggling with her power.
"What did I do? H-How did I do that?" Bo held her hands out in front of her, Dyson's blood having splattered over the both from the blows she had rained down on him.
Trick's frown changed to one of confusion as he shook his head, truly not sure how she had been able to physically overpower the wolf. Nothing Bo had seemed to do involved the normal use of Succubus power, she had seemed to somehow channel her rage into pure physical energy.
"Bo?" Lauren's fragile query broke everyone's concentration.
"Lauren." Bo didn't feel a decrease in the flood of power within her body, but her focus at least managed to change from the broken form of Dyson to the blonde's voice. The succubus pushed up from the floor moving swiftly towards the bar. "Lauren." She repeated reaching out as soon as she was able to touch the blonde, putting her hand on her lover's leg, her eyes scanning over her for signs of injury instantly picking up on a trail of blood near her hairline.
Flicking her head around at Dyson again Bo had nearly made a half step away from the bar when Kenzi put her hand over the one that Bo had on Lauren's leg.
"Can you help me get her down Bo-Bo she's a bit wobbly." Kenzi tried to pull her best friend's attention back from the bloodied wolf who Trick was attending too.
Bo turned her attention back to Kenzi and Lauren with a little shake of her head. It was as she took a step to the side that Bo felt the edges of her world lose focus and begin to dim, the leg she moved buckled making her fall sideways crashing into the stool they had been about to lower Lauren onto.
"Bo!" The still groggy Lauren no longer seemed to require the aid Kenzi had asked of the succubus as she slid off the bar of her own volition to get to her falling lover. Leaving Kenzi to have to be the one to have to run all the way around the bar before she could get to her best friend.
-x-
Kenzi stood tensely beside the bar watching from a distance as guards and medical personal left with Dyson, to take him once again to the compound. Supervised by the Ash and Trick who stood nearby, Hale's face sombre but at the same time relieved that once again Dyson was in custody. The young woman just let them talk, uninterpreted, she knew it would just be a case of going through the details of what had happened and what would happen next and she didn't want to listen to that BS right now.
It was Hale who surprised her by walking over moments later.
"Hey there little momma." He said softly as he went to sit down, but seeing the stool that Bo had crashed into had actually suffered a broken leg he decided against it.
"Hey." She returned the greeting though her tone was halfhearted to say the least.
"I'm not your favourite person right now huh?" The siren continued still trying to catch Kenzi's eye.
"I'm not saying I blame you for the fact that apparently your security detail is staffed by badly trained armadillos, no wait that's an offence to armadillos." The young woman shook her head. "Seriously two escapes in the same amount of days? What are you a kindergarten?" She eventually met his eyes.
"I've got no come back girl." Hale shook his head honestly, having asked himself all the same questions on the way over. "Just that Dyson knows that place better than I do, better than possibly anyone. He knows the designs going back years; hidden defences, switches, passages, the whole nine yards." He sighed hard. "That and originally I guess like a lot of people I didn't want to think anything real bad of him you know?" Hale poked his finger at the bar top.
Kenzi decided not to comment on that particular line and left a long moment of silence before saying anything else.
"At least with any luck this will have fulfilled this challenge he's obsessed with and with hormone treatments over time we'll get Dyson back." The young woman tried to release some of her built up tension as she breathed out hard. "Well he might never again be as pretty as he once was." She added the after thought.
"Shifters heal pretty good." Hale nodded. "You okay?" He asked looking at Kenzi with a soft frown.
Kenzi seemed to think about her answer for a long moment. Her mind dwelling on the recent events and the attitudes to it that she had encountered from various people and fae.
"I want those papers from you, as soon as you can, when you're done dealing with all this." She said looking at the young Ash. "The papers I need to sign before I can start digging through stuff to sort out what happens to Lauren."
Hale took a moment to react, he would honestly admit of all the things he had been expecting Kenzi to say that had not been one of them.
"I'll put it to the top of my agenda." He promised her with a soft nod.
"Good." Kenzi nodded taking a deep breath. "I need some air."
With a soft frown Hale watched as the young woman slipped past him and walked to the door. The weight of Kenzi's judgement of his failure to keep Dyson contained, sitting uneasy with him, as one person he had never wanted to disappoint was Kenzi.
-x-
Bo tipped her head back letting the hot water from the shower pour down over her face, wishing that it would wash away far more that the dirt and the blood from her body. She wished it could take away the residual feelings of guilt, and the sting of inadequacy. The feelings of shame and of pain that cut into her every time she had looked at Lauren. Since they had got back from the Dal, Bo had seen the new level of tiredness, the new level of stress and trauma on her lover's face and in those brown eyes that she loved to look into so much.
She wished the warmth of the water would do more than just warm her skin, sinking in deep enough to take away the chill that had permeated deeper at the thought of what could have happened to the woman she loved, so deep in fact that it still send random chills racing up her spine.
Pushing her hands up through her hair Bo brushed the water off her face, stepping forward just slightly so that the water hammered on her back for a moment as she squeezed some of the heavy liquid from her hair.
Bo heard the sound of the shower curtain being moved aside, but didn't shift in the tub not even when the rhythmic pattern of the water hitting her on the back was interrupted.
"You missed a spot." Lauren's soft voice filled the small zone with a totally different type of warmth, one that instantly brought tears to the succubus' eyes. "Right here." Soft hands slid onto Bo's shoulders in a broad soft stroke. Bo let her head drop forward a little as Lauren repeated the motion a few times before leaning in and placing a kiss against Bo's neck. "It's not your fault." The blonde whispered nuzzling her now wet face against Bo's ear. The succubus took a slightly staggered breath as more tears fell from her eyes, Lauren's arms coming from behind to hold her.
-x-
Lauren had gone straight from the bath to lay down, needing to rest her head more than anything. The one and only blow that Dyson had struck her with had been hard and precise, meant to knock her out.
Bo had promised to join her as soon as she had done a couple of little things, the first of which the succubus was focused on now and that was talking to Hale. As she spoke to the young Ash on the phone, she walked through the lower level of the club house randomly picking up junk and clutter, with Kenzi following after her. Often taking the thing Bo moved and putting it back where she had originally taking it from in the first place.
Finally the conversation concluded and Bo turned to see Kenzi returning an open bag of chips to the coffee table, clearly having been in the middle of eating them.
"I was bringing them to the kitchen to put a clip on the top." Bo took on of the magnetic chip clips off the fridge and held it up. "It helps keep them fresh remember." She pointed out bringing it over to the coffee table and holding it out for her best friend, who took it and stuck it on the open bag.
"What's the word from the compound?" Kenzi asked as she perched on the chair arm.
"Things sound okay." Bo nodded. "Dyson's comfortable, all his injuries are fixable. His broken ribs and collar bone will take the longest." She smiled a little tightly not wanting to have to list all the injuries that Hale had summed up for her from the fight. She'd broken most of the ribs on his left side, dislocated his shoulder and broke the collar bone, done extensive soft tissue damage to his face and head, that required over 75 fine stitches. "He's going to be sore and slightly immobile for a while."
"Hey that's not a bad thing." Kenzi pointed out with a shrug.
"Working with what Lauren sent them and the data they have, Hale said the lab's been playing with a hormone treatment already and they hope to have the first shot in by midnight." She added the detail Hale had told her.
"Double yay." Kenzi nodded as she watched Bo sit down.
"This was a nightmare Kenzi." The succubus breathed out hard as she looked at her best friend. "I mean it still is, how do we know it's over?" She added giving voice to her greatest worry. "How am I ever going to trust him near Lauren again?" She shook her head trying not to focus on all the negative emotions that it instantly caused inside her.
"One step at a time." Kenzi replied trying to help her at least order her mind. "We take it one step at a time." The younger woman outlined the simple plan. "Hale already said Dyson's going to be his guest until everyone is sure that he's safe again, his heavily supervised guest." Kenzi pointed out the stipulation. "And Lauren's here with us." She outlined the clear basic fact. "So the two have no need to intermingle without heavily armed supervision for as long as it takes." She slid down to sit on the chair properly.
"But you know Lauren, she'll want to be involved in his treatments, make sure everything is right and..." Bo glanced over her shoulder at the staircase.
"Then you my dear, take your girlfriend aside and tell her no." Kenzi leaned forward and patted Bo's knee. "It's this thing you can do in a relationship, it's called compromising."
This comment actually made Bo smile.
"Technically we're lovers, we're not girlfriends." She pointed out.
"Oh whatever." Kenzi shook her head and rolled her eyes. "I really don't think you being a little super sensitive and worried about her is going to be a problem for her right now." The younger woman pointed out confidently. "She needs like a nest of bubble wrap to live in for a while, all safe and snug and secure here with us. But she can't have Mr Kickers." The young woman teased when she saw the goofy smile that Bo was giving her.
"Thank you Kenzi, wow I seem to have been saying that a lot recently." Bo looked at her best friend with a soft sincere frown. "I know this whole thing has been really hard for you, thinking that maybe the Norn had done something, and with it being Dyson, and you and him being so close..."
"Actually Bo-Bo it kinda got simple for me around the time he attempted to rape Lauren." Kenzi clarified easily. "I'm simple like that." She shook her head. "Friends don't let friends do that kind of thing, friends know when to pull the plug on each, other you know?" She looked at Bo, her face serious. "Real friends know when to make the hard choices."
"It's not always black and white." Bo kept the look and shook her head softly.
"No it's not, and that's when you've got to get creative." Kenzi agreed. "But you've still got to do shit, not just hope it goes away." She summed up reaching out for the television remote. "Now will you please go upstairs and initiate the bubble wrapping?" She pointed with the remote to the staircase.
"You don't need anything?" Bo checked as she did indeed began to make her way in that direction.
"A million dollars would be nice." Kenzi sunk down into the chair and flicked the television on. Bo just shook her head as she headed up the stairs back to Lauren, thankful for both the women in her life.
-x-