No Dogs Allowed

Setup: Season 1, Episode 7, ArachnoFaebia. Canon up till this point. Lauren shows up at the Dal to meet Bo, Dyson is with her and won't leave. Tension ensues. Dialogue from the show is in bold italics.

"Are you questioning my fealty?" Dyson challenged the doctor.

Bo made a futile attempt to diffuse the tension. "You know what, I'm not even really sure what that is, but I'm pretty sure she was not questioning it."

"I can speak for myself." Lauren quickly responded, though she kept her stare fixed on Dyson.

"When the Ash lets you." Dyson smiled smugly, knowing that he succeeded in completely rattling the doctor.

Lauren looked at Dyson with a grin that shot daggers. She didn't have to put up with this shit. "Thanks," She put her drink down and turned to face Bo. "for the, um...'fun.'"

Lauren stood up and briskly walked away, leaving Bo speechless and Dyson smirking. Bo couldn't believe what just happened. When Lauren arrived and Dyson decided to stay it was slightly awkward, but when Bo asked Lauren to join them on the couch the last thing she expected was an all-out pissing contest.

Once she got over being stunned, Bo was furious. "Dyson, what the fuck is wrong with you? As soon as she walked in you got so goddamned territorial you might as well have peed on me! Just because I'm a succubus doesn't mean that swinging your dick around is the way to impress me!"

"Oh come on, Bo. She's not really your friend. She's just trying to get in your pants! Sometimes you're too trusting."

Bo was shocked by the presumptuous condescension behind his 'I'm just looking out for you' excuse. He may have fooled himself, but his real motives were obvious to Bo. So much for being honorable and noble. "Yeah Dyson, I suppose I really am." Bo glared at him as she got up to leave. "Enjoy the shots."

"Where are you going?" It had never occurred to him that Bo would reject his company.

"You may have won the cockfight, but you're sure as hell not getting the prize!" Without waiting for a response, she turned in a huff to go find Lauren, as Dyson gaped at her in bewilderment.

Bo checked the bar but there was no sign of her friend. "Shit." Hale and Kenzi looked up and simply pointed at the door. She ran out the door and looked both ways down the alley. Still no Lauren. "Dammit!" Next, Bo ran to the end of the alley and on to the main street. Almost a block away, she saw Lauren trying to hail a cab. Bo sprinted toward the doctor, watching in frustration as a cab stopped to pick her up.

Once Lauren climbed into the cab and gave the driver her address, she went to pull the door closed and felt an unusual resistance. She looked up and saw Bo holding the door open with a coy smile on her face.

"Would you mind sharing a cab?"

As soon as Lauren saw Bo's face, all of the tension and humiliation from the encounter with Dyson just melted away. Bo had left Dyson behind. More importantly, Bo had come after her. Lauren's eyes sparkled and she smiled brightly. "Sure, come on in." Lauren said as she eagerly slid over to make room for Bo.

"So where are we going?"

"I was just going home. Do you want to go somewhere else? Maybe somewhere that doesn't allow dogs?" she asked innocently.

Bo couldn't hold back her giggles. She was utterly charmed. "Wherever you want, Lauren. But it would be nice if I had a chance to buy you a proper drink."

"I've got some wine at my place." Lauren tried to sound nonchalant, but was doubtful that she pulled it off. What the hell am I doing?

Their eyes met in a meaningful stare and Bo grinned impishly. She knew she was playing with fire, and she was willingly walking right into it like a moth to a flame. "That sounds lovely."

Lauren couldn't believe her good fortune. She decided that taking Bo home for a nightcap was well worth the price of temporarily losing her dignity to the posturing wolf.

"Wow Lauren, your place is beautiful!" exclaimed Bo as she was ushered into Lauren's apartment. "So bright and open. Is that a loft?"

Lauren smiled flirtatiously. "Yes, but when I want to be extra pretentious I call it the mezzanine."

Bo giggled at her friend's charming dorkiness. "Oh, so that's where the cheap seats are, huh?"

Lauren walked over to the kitchen island to put down her purse. "You definitely get cute points for going with the theatre metaphor," she turned back to look at Bo and raised an eyebrow. "…on the other hand you're insinuating that access to my bed is cheap and easy." Oh my god, did I just say that out loud?

Bo responded with her own raised eyebrow. "Then maybe you should call it the Luxury Box instead."

"My bed, the Luxury Box?" Lauren giggled, but she was helpless to stop her blush. "Sounds like the VIP room in a Victorian brothel. So did you just make a pretentious dirty joke on purpose or was it an accident?"

"That depends. Which answer gives me the most points?"

"Accident has the most cute points, on purpose has the most sexy points. Take your pick."

"Then it must have been an accident." Bo sashayed over to the kitchen island and climbed on a stool. "Because I have all the sexy I need."

Lauren chuckled nervously, knowing full well that Bo could read her like a book. "And that's my cue to go find some wine glasses. I have a decent Pinot Noire, or would you prefer white Zin?"

"Pinot sounds great." Bo smiled and silently watched Lauren retrieve the bottle of wine and rummage around in a drawer until she found a corkscrew. Bo felt a pleasant flutter in her stomach when she saw Lauren's shirt ride up and tighten around her curves as she stretched up to reach the wine glasses on the top shelf of the cupboard.

"I really appreciate you having me over Lauren, especially after you walked into that ambush. I can't tell you how sorry I am about that."

"Dyson's a big boy, you don't need to apologize for him. And as unpleasant as it was – you totally made my night by coming after me." Lauren handed Bo a glass of wine and took a sip of her own.

"I'm just so glad I caught you in time. I almost missed you because I was busy telling Dyson off."

"Too bad I left early," Lauren mused. "I would have loved to have stayed and watched the show." Her eyes twinkled as she sipped her wine while holding Bo's gaze. "Care to give me the highlights?"

Bo maintained eye contact and took a moment to savor her wine before she swallowed. "I believe my parting words were 'you won the cockfight but you're not getting the prize.'" She boasted with a sly grin.

"Oooh, snap! That was a good show." Lauren could not have been more delighted as she learned how Bo had defended her honor. "You'll have to let me know if it's playing again sometime so I can buy tickets."

"I have a sneaking suspicion it will be playing the next time the three of us are in a room together. In which case, we'll have front row seats if you stick around." Bo rolled her eyes as she sipped some more wine. "I honestly don't get him. He's the one who said we could have sex only for healing, that he didn't want a relationship. And then he gets all possessive like I'm his girlfriend or something."

"Do you want to be?" Lauren internally slapped herself. Do I really want to know the answer to that question?

Bo was pensive for a few moments. "I thought I did. I was pretty peeved when he said he didn't want any strings. But then what the hell do I know about relationships? He was the first person I slept with who didn't die. Maybe I saw him as the Prince Charming who could rescue me from my life as a serial killer. That can make a person fairly attractive. But this territorial bullshit is beyond annoying."

"Not to mention childish. I don't know why he feels so threatened." That was a lie of course. Lauren knew she was Dyson's competition, she just didn't think the odds were in her favor. But Lauren also didn't want to sound overeager and make Bo feel pressured or awkward, so she downplayed the vague nature of their relationship. "We were getting together for a friendly drink, it's not as if we're dating." Or are we?

Bo held her friend's gaze just a little too long when Lauren mentioned they weren't dating. Fearing that Lauren may have seen the longing in her eyes, Bo quickly snapped out of it. "And he tried to make it sound like he was just looking out for poor, little, innocent me – how noble!"

"So not only does he think I'm a rival, he thinks I'm evil too? How sweet of him."

"Not evil exactly. Just, um…well, he said you're not really my friend and that..." Bo looked away as she realized she was saying something she probably shouldn't. "…you're just trying to get in my pants."

Lauren slowly put her wine down as she saw how uncomfortable Bo had just become. Lauren sighed heavily as she felt the need to give Bo some reassurance, despite her own embarrassment. "Bo, in order to be in your life I've had to make peace with the fact that at any given moment, you know the state of my libido better than I do. So I know I can't hide how attracted I am to you, regardless of how inconvenient or impractical it is." She reached across the island and gently grasped Bo's hand, causing her to finally look directly at Lauren again. "But I do hope you know that my interest in your friendship is genuine, and I would never want to do anything to jeopardize that."

"I know that." Bo began involuntarily rubbing Lauren's knuckles with her thumb as she felt her heart flutter just from holding Lauren's hand. "Regardless of what your hormones are doing, I know you've always had the best of intentions."

Lauren looked away and smiled self-deprecatingly. Then she happily realized that Bo was still holding her hand and didn't seem in a hurry to let go. "So, uh…I've been meaning to ask, how have you been doing with your hunger since the last injection? I tweaked the formula a little bit, have you noticed any difference?"

"You know, now that I think about it, I've gone a little longer between feedings these last several days, so that's good." Bo felt herself being pulled into another revealing stare with Lauren. "But I still worry if I'll ever be safe enough to be with a human, ah, humans."

Bo's slip didn't get past Lauren, and she smiled internally at the possibility that Bo had a specific human in mind. "You've made a lot of progress, Bo. You successfully stopped feeding on that security guard, and that was the first time you tried with an actual human."

"Yeah, I was pretty happy about that, but I also know that it's going to be ten times harder to stop if I'm actually feeding during sex."

"One step at a time Bo. You'll get there."

After a long pause, Bo timidly broke the silence. "Do you think I'll ever be able to have sex without feeding at all?"

Bo's sudden vulnerability made Lauren's heart clench. "Bo, you can control your abilities but you can't just stop being a succubus. You will always need chi for nourishment."

"No, that's not what I mean. I just want to be able to have the option not to feed. So that sex isn't always about feeding. I want to be able to…to…" Bo couldn't finish her sentence as she realized how much she was exposing. She wasn't used to being the transparent one. Bo sighed heavily and looked down at their still clasped hands and she felt herself blush.

"To make love?" Lauren said gently.

"Yeah." Bo swallowed hard. "With someone special." Bo finally dared to look at Lauren again, who gazed back at her with the kindest eyes. "I've never had that, you know?"

"The very fact that you want that is contrary to everything we know about succubi, but somehow, I'm not surprised. You deserve to have that experience, Bo. And I know someday you will." Lauren smiled affectionately and gave Bo's hand a reassuring squeeze before finally letting go to pick up her wine glass again.

A hopeful grin spread across Bo's face as she too picked up her wine. As they each took a slow sip, Bo and Lauren shared a coy gaze, and the same thought. Someday can't get here soon enough.

FIN