All the lights were off when Bo arrived, but that didn't deter her; she'd been inside Dyson's home often enough that she could easily find her way around in the dark. She headed straight for the bed and was just about to wake him up when a shaft of moonlight filtered in through the window and she saw that the lump under the covers wasn't Dyson – it was some woman. Bo snatched her hand back as if she'd been stung. There was another woman in Dyson's bed! Okay, so he wasn't in there with her, which was weird, but still, it suddenly felt like coming here had been a very bad idea. Forget confronting him about the visions; all Bo wanted at the moment was to get out of there.
Unfortunately, Dyson's wolfish senses were too sharp for her to creep out undetected; she had barely made it out of his bedroom when he appeared out of the living area/defunct boxing gym, putting a stop to her stealthy exit. "Bo? What are you doing here at this hour?" He was a little wary considering that the last time Bo dropped in unexpectedly it wasn't really her, but at least this time she smelled right.
"Ah...would you believe I just needed to borrow a cup of sugar?"
Dyson crossed his arms over his muscular chest - Why the hell didn't I wait and do this in the daytime, when he'd be wearing more than a pair of pajama pants? Bo wondered. This is definitely the kind of conversation that requires clothing! - indicating that he would believe no such thing.
"All right, I came to talk to you. I didn't know you had company." Cringing at how much like a jealous ex she sounded, she hurried to add, "It's fine - I was just surprised since I didn't know you were seeing anyone."
"I'm not. Hera took Alicia's husband as his vessel, and he attacked her earlier during the blackout. I brought her here to keep her safe."
"Oh," Bo said lamely, feeling rather foolish.
"So what did you want to talk about?"
"Oh, that. I had a run-in with some oracles tonight, and Trick told me you did too. He also told me how they take the form of whoever your heart most desires. So...who'd you see?"
Dyson raised his eyebrows; he wouldn't have thought she'd need to ask. "You first. I know you're with Tamsin now - at least that's what she keeps saying - but you don't seem as enthusiastic about her as she is about you."
"Yeah, um..." Bo shifted uncomfortably. "I didn't see Tamsin. I ended it with her, actually; it's a long story, but basically I realized I couldn't give her what she wanted and it was wrong of me to keep leading her on."
"You must have seen Lauren then," he said with a complete lack of surprise.
"Well yeah, I did, but the thing is..." She hesitated briefly before mustering her courage and plunging ahead. "...I saw you too. The oracles appeared as you first and then turned into her. And while they were you, they said all this stuff about how what we had was real love and those feelings don't go away." Her voice was barely above a whisper by the time she finished, but he still heard every word. "That seems like the kind of thing we should talk about...unless the oracles told you something different. Will you tell me who you saw now?"
"It was you, of course. It's always been you." He had intended to keep that to himself, but since she'd brought it up, and even confessed that he still ranked as at least one of her heart's desires, he figured he might as well lay it all on the line. "They said you still think about me-"
"Clearly, I do."
"They also said you couldn't be with me right now. I get it, Bo - whatever you feel for me, I know you love Lauren too, and she isn't going to be around as long as I am. I understand if you want to be with her while you can."
Bo drew in a deep breath, then slowly let it out. "Yeah, I...I've tried not to think what her being mortal means for us, but it makes sense that it could've affected my choices on some level... I didn't really think about your feelings in all this, though. Would you really wait that long for me?"
"Wolves mate for life, Bo. I'll always love you, but most of all I want you to be happy, and if you're happier with someone else, I won't stand in your way."
"There you go again with the noble, self-sacrificing routine," she huffed.
"Well, if you want less chivalry, I could say I won't exactly enjoy seeing you and Lauren together for the next sixty years, knowing if you ever come back to me it'll only be because she isn't around anymore."
"Tell me about it - I felt the same way watching her with Nadia, knowing that when we were both there she chose Nadia over me. I'm pretty sure they would have stayed together too, if Nadia hadn't died; at least I never saw any signs of them breaking up. It sucked realizing I was Lauren's second choice."
"But you took her back anyway. That's what I don't understand - I know it hurt when the Norn took my love for you, but you know I didn't mean for that to happen. I would never deliberately do anything to cause you pain. Lauren and I may be getting along better these days, and I don't resent her like I used to, but I can't help noticing that she chose to leave you and keep things from you, and still she gets a free pass for everything. Why is that? I thought you wanted honesty in a relationship; when we were together, you told me how important it was that we didn't keep secrets from each other. That's what made me realize it was time for me and Trick to come clean about Aife."
Bo nodded in agreement. "Yeah, I know Lauren hasn't been very forthcoming, and we don't talk as much as I'd like - every time we try, we usually end up getting...distracted." Almost as if they were using sex, the one area where they were undeniably very good together, to avoid facing their problems and convince themselves that their excellent physical chemistry meant they had a solid relationship.
"At least she was there, though," Bo went on, determined not to let her latest discomfiting realization sidetrack her before she'd made her point. "I never had to question whether she wanted me once Nadia was out of the picture, but you... I had to find out you had your love back from Kenzi, who told me you asked her not to say anything!"
"There was just too much going on - first the Garuda, then the Hecuba investigation so soon after that - and I didn't want to distract you. Then after Hecuba, you chose Lauren-" His explanation got cut off there by Bo's fist slamming into his jaw.
"Not wanting to distract me is a lousy excuse," she growled. "As far as me 'choosing' Lauren, did it ever occur to you that it wasn't much of a choice when it looked like she was my only option? Who knows, things might have been different if I'd known you loved me. When I did finally find out, of course I wasn't going to immediately dump her for you, because that'd be a shitty thing to do, and I appreciated you respecting my decision. But then after Lauren and I broke up, you didn't fight to get me back; even when we started sleeping together, you never argued when I said there were no feelings involved, and I didn't know if having your ability to love back meant you loved me again or if your heart had some kind of reset button."
"Reset button?" Dyson scoffed.
"Well, you weren't acting like you were all that interested anymore," Bo said, throwing her hands up in exasperation. "So what do you have to say for yourself?"
"I guess the first thing I should say is that I'm sorry. I should have told you, it's just that...I know I seemed cold and distant when my heart was gone, but I saw how much you were hurting. I saw how hard it was for you to let go and start thinking of me just as a friend, and after all that, I couldn't expect you to just go back to the way things were before. I wasn't sure if it was fair to even ask you to try, and I didn't want you to feel like you owed me anything." She opened her mouth to jump in with a comment, but he held his hand up, reminding her that she'd had her say and it was his turn to talk now. "Later on, I didn't fight for you because I didn't think you wanted me to; you and Lauren may not have been together but I could tell you weren't over her. I'm not sure you ever will be."
"Me either - the oracles even said that as long as Lauren and I are alive, we can't not be together."
"And?" Dyson asked curiously.
Bo blinked. "What do you mean, 'and'?"
"Well, you mentioned that when the oracles appeared as me they reminded you of everything we've been through together, all the sacrifices we've made for each other, so they must have said something along the same lines about why your heart desires Lauren too, right? I mean, just saying you should be with someone because you can't not be with them isn't a very good reason. Actually, it's not a reason at all."
"You're right, it isn't...but, uh, the oracles didn't say anything more about her. That doesn't mean there aren't reasons, though! She's so smart - a lot of our cases wouldn't have gotten solved if it wasn't for her, and when I first came into the fae world, she was the one who helped me learn what it meant to be a succubus, and control it. Even you couldn't do that for me, Dyson. I loved that I could be with you without worrying about killing you, but you couldn't help me with not killing in the first place. Being with Lauren made me feel normal."
As she listed her reasons for wanting to be with Lauren, however, Bo found herself wondering for the first time if they truly were good ones. Yes, Lauren's intelligence was an admirable quality, but it didn't necessarily make her compatible with Bo; in fact it was a bit of a hindrance in that area, since Bo couldn't grasp the obscure concepts that fascinated Lauren, and most of her interests were too low-brow for the brilliant scientist. She would always be grateful for Lauren's help in mastering her fae powers, but she had long since moved past the stage where she depended on her for that - and was gratitude really a good enough reason to stay with her after all the secrecy and betrayals of trust?
As for her making Bo feel normal, did she even want that anymore? She recalled with painful clarity a time when she would have given almost anything to be cured of the freakishness that caused people to drop dead after sleeping with her, but now that such a 'cure' existed, it had never once occurred to her to ask Lauren to make her human. Her fae nature was part of who she was, a part she had finally made peace with while preparing for her Dawning, and she didn't think she wanted to give it up even if becoming human would make it somewhat easier for them to be together.
"I see," Dyson said with a hint of sadness. "Well, if that's what you want, then I'm glad you've found someone who can give it to you."
He started to turn away, but Bo grabbed his hand. "Wait! The thing is, I don't know if I do want normal anymore. I mean, if I did, I could have that now with the serum, but I've never asked Lauren for it. I'm not sure that'd solve all our problems anyway, since there'd still be the issues with us not liking the same things and her not trusting me enough to share important stuff with me until I've already found out about it some other way. An hour ago I would've gone back to her anyway, because slipping back into the same old pattern is easier than admitting that what you've been doing isn't working and maybe you don't want the same things out of life that you used to, but after everything that's happened tonight I've done a lot of soul-searching and realized maybe it's time for a change. Maybe it's time to stop trying to force something that just wasn't meant to be and ignoring what's been right under my nose all along. Like the oracles said, you've always been there for me even when we weren't together and I've taken you for granted-"
"Bo," Dyson interrupted, "enough talking for one night." Then he kissed her. Even after all this time, his kiss still felt like Fourth of July fireworks in her mouth, like the kiss that had brought her back when the portal to hell opened and the dark energy she'd absorbed from the army of revenants started to consume her...it felt like coming home.
"Is it okay if I stay here? I don't feel like making the drive back to the Clubhouse; it's been such a crazy night that all I want to do is sleep."
"Do you mind taking the couch? Unless you'd rather wake Alicia up..."
Bo groaned. "No, we should let her sleep, but we're reclaiming your bed tomorrow - when I might have the energy to use it for something more than sleeping."
Dyson showed his approval of that idea with a grin that revealed more than a hint of his feral side as he took her hand and led her inside; he could hold off for one more day, but after waiting so long, his wolf was definitely eager to claim its mate at last. Bo smiled back, her eyes briefly turning blue despite her current worn-out state. It might have taken a ridiculously long time, a lot of mistakes on both sides, and a trio of oracles for them to find their way back to each other, but they were both very glad it had happened...even if they were about to spend their first night as an officially reunited couple on a lumpy old couch.
And that's it for this story. My computer's back now, so it's time for me to get back to work on my other projects.