Table of Contents

heartsways - The Twelfth Way: Concession

LOST GIRL - BO/LAUREN

“Ways To Tell You I’m Sorry” series

The Twelfth Way: Concession

heartsways

Title: Ways To Tell You I’m Sorry - The Twelfth Way: Concession

Author: heartsways

Rating: NC–17

Fandom: Lost Girl

Pairing: Bo/Lauren

Disclaimer: All television shows, movies, books, and other copyrighted material referred to in this work, and the characters, settings, and events thereof, are the properties of their respective owners. As this work is an interpretation of the original material and not for–profit, it constitutes fair use. Reference to real persons, places, or events are made in a fictional context, and are not intended to be libelous, defamatory, or in any way factual.

Summary: Bo and Lauren find that they have some things to talk about.

Author’s Note: Thanks for the awesome beta and advice. Truly appreciated. And this will probably be the last update until after Christmas. Sorry to leave it on a cliffhanger. Wait…no I’m not. I’m not sorry at all! Muahaha.

The Twelfth Way: Concession

heartsways

Bo opened her eyes and tried to ignore the killer headache that pounded behind them with all the grace and subtlety of a jackhammer. Groaning, she reached up and rubbed at her forehead, feeling the faint stippling of flesh just beneath her hairline although there was no pain anymore. She didn’t remember much; she’d been in so much pain that consciousness had taken a well–deserved break and what she could draw from her memory was hazy and a collection of images seen through the broken mirror of shock, fragmented and jagged. Squinting into the stray beams of sunlight creeping through the boards over her window, she blinked a few times and tried to piece together what had happened after she’d tumbled through the doorway of her home and collapsed at Kenzi’s feet.

Lauren.

The name sprung to her mind almost immediately and she sucked in a short, loud breath, lifting her head from the pillow and struggling up onto her elbows. Lauren had been here the evening before. Bo could remember that, if not much else. Lauren had come to her and seen her weak and wounded and helpless. Just the way the Succubus promised herself she would never be again. Her heart sank as she remembered Lauren’s hands on her flesh; Lauren’s eyes looking her over and reflecting the pain emanating from every part of her body, clawing its way out of her almost like a living, breathing thing. Bo had failed. She’d tried to defend Lauren’s sacrifice – defend her life – and she’d failed. And all that had happened was that she had given the doctor cause for more pain.

It wasn’t how Bo had envisaged their relationship progressing at all. Because if she couldn’t be strong for Lauren in the most base of ways, then what good was she at all?

“You’re awake,” a voice came from the other side of the room.

Turning her head, Bo saw Lauren in a chair that had previously been shoved in a corner of the lounge downstairs. The doctor had a book on her lap which she slowly closed and put to one side before rising and moving to the bed, sitting down beside Bo and giving the Succubus a warm, if tentative, smile.

“I…uh…how long have I been out?” Bo frowned, shaking her head slightly as though the movement could dislodge the remnants of sleep that lingered around the frayed edges of her brain.

“About a day,” Lauren said, her gaze flickering up and down Bo’s body. Reaching over to the bedside table, she picked up her light and leaned over Bo, lifting the Succubus’ eyelid and shining it directly at the iris. Bo flinched and tried not to blink, but as Lauren moved to her other eye, she reached up and curled her fingers around the doctor’s wrist.

Lauren frowned slightly and fixed the Succubus with a stern gaze. “Bo, I need to check your visual acuity,” she said quietly. “I need to know that you’re healing properly.”

“Believe me, I am,” Bo answered. But she let go of Lauren’s arm and allowed the doctor to complete her inspection of the eye. Making a sound of satisfaction, Lauren replaced the light on the bedside table and then moved forwards, pressing her fingers into the hollows just beneath Bo’s ears, pressing gently. Her mouth twitched slightly and, catching Bo’s gaze, she smiled again before sitting back. Grabbing her stethoscope, Lauren inserted the ear pieces and then tugged at the sheet over Bo’s naked body. If she reacted to the Succubus’ nude figure, it barely showed on her face and Bo couldn’t resist a vague smile. Sometimes she forgot that Lauren’s immersion in her profession was absolute – that when the doctor was fixated on medical issues, the rest of the world melted away. Even if the rest of the world was contained in a muscular, lithe and beautifully strong female form currently lying naked in the bed below Lauren’s eyes.

Shifting slightly, Bo caught the doctor’s gaze and Lauren blinked, two tiny spots of color appearing high up on her cheeks. Well, Bo thought almost smugly, maybe Lauren wasn’t completely immune to her charms after all, when it really mattered.

Pressing the diaphragm against Bo’s chest, Lauren listened carefully, moving it from one side to the other before she seemed satisfied with her findings and removed it altogether. Pulling it from her ears, Lauren nodded and smiled again, this time the gesture was less shadowed by the night’s memories.

“You seem fine,” she murmured, “apart from a few patches here and there.” Her eyes moved over Bo’s shoulder and face, roaming across scarring that was, even now, beginning to fade into smooth, fresh, healthy skin.

“Is that your professional diagnosis?” Bo’s eyebrows knitted together in bemusement as Lauren pulled the sheet up over her body again, tucking it around her almost daintily.

“Bo,” Lauren admonished with vague amusement, putting the stethoscope onto the table next to the bed and dipping her head so that the Succubus couldn’t see the concern etched onto her face. She’d kept vigil at Bo’s bed while the Succubus healed. Dyson had given her the energy she needed, but the real restorative process was contained in the deep sleep that had followed the exchange of life–saving Fae essence. Kenzi had helped her move the chair from the lounge into Bo’s room and it was where Lauren had stayed for an agonizingly long 24 hours, occasionally checking Bo’s vitals and administering sips of water to the half–conscious Fae.

Bo would never know what it was like, watching her sleep, restless and troubled. She must never know what it was like, Lauren reminded herself. Monitoring patients was a necessary part of medical treatment, but monitoring Bo had been an experience Lauren never wanted to repeat. She’d always prided herself on her detachment from patients; it was one of the facets of her personality that The Ash congratulated her on, in fact. Being able to disassociate herself from the vagaries of illness and disease had always protected her.

But there was no protection from Bo, or the way she felt about her. Her pretense that she felt nothing was the flimsiest of barriers, unable to stop her heart from being consumed by the emotion the mere presence of Bo elicited. Lauren knew this as certainly as she knew all immutable facts in her world. Fighting the onslaught of that feeling had taken so much effort that she was simply too exhausted to rail against it any more. Though she had yet to give voice to them, she had found treacherous relief in surrendering to those feelings, in naming them even if she could not yet bring herself to truly accept them. They were as much a part of her as the air that she breathed, or the blood that quickened in response to a single look from Bo.

“Jesus, I feel like I’ve been hit by a truck,” Bo moaned, lifting a hand to her head and pressing her fingers against her temple.

“Hm,” Lauren sat back on the bed, eyeing Bo with as much criticism as she could muster. But it was difficult for her to feel anything but unbridled joy at seeing Bo so healthy again, her wounds almost fully healed. It was a strange sensation, being so fully invested in the wellbeing of another. She’d told herself that that was the reason she’d joined the medical profession in the first place, but as she’d sat in the chair watching Bo sleep, Lauren had realized that this was different. She cared about Bo’s welfare as much as her own – probably more – and that had never happened before. In a life that had become insular, beginning and ending with her own existence in the world of the Fae, Lauren had almost forgotten how liberating it was to love someone so completely. And how terrifying. Her world was no longer structured and compartmentalized; now her world was unwittingly huge and unpredictable.

A hand crept out from under the bedclothes and covered her own. Looking down at it, Lauren smiled slowly. Maybe huge and unpredictable could be a good thing, after all.

“Well,” she said briskly, clearing her throat and trying to dispel the tangled mists of doubt that twined around her heart and mind. “You have Dyson to thank for the fact that you’re still here with only a headache and some scars as a souvenir. I can give you something for the headache, and the scars will fade in a few days.”

She paused, catching her breath and sliding her hand from Bo’s grasp. “You’ll need to feed, of course. But that should take care of – ”

“Lauren.” Bo’s voice was low, eyes dark and worried.

“I’ll get you some painkillers for that headache.” Lauren stood up and moved to search through her medical bag; anything rather than let Bo see how much she cared. It was ridiculous to expect Bo to be with her and remain monogamous. Ridiculous to even think it could work that way.

“Lauren, look at me.”

The doctor’s hands ceased their foraging and Lauren was immobile, her back still turned to Bo.

“Lauren! Look at me!” Bo pushed herself up in the bed and shoved at her hair. As Lauren’s gaze travelled slowly up the side of the bed until it met that of the Succubus, Bo’s eyes widened imperceptibly at the almost guilty expression on the doctor’s face.

“Just…come here,” she patted the bed beside her, relenting slightly.

Moving reluctantly, Lauren rose and returned to the bed, sitting down on the edge of it. Bo inched closer to her and reached out, wrapping her fingers around the doctor’s and squeezing.

“Are we going to talk about this?” she asked, peering up into Lauren’s eyes, apprehensive about what she might see there.

Lauren smiled at her and gave a tiny shrug. “There’s really nothing to talk about, Bo. As a human, I would never be able to sustain you as your only source of energy. You’re a Succubus, and you require more than any one person could possibly give you. You have to establish a regular feeding pattern and – ”

“Can you please stop talking like a doctor and talk like…” Bo frowned, tugging at Lauren’s hand. “Like a human being?”

Drawing breath, Lauren swallowed and nodded, letting out a soft laugh. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry,” Bo urged. “Just be honest. Do you want to be with me?”

Despite herself, Lauren smirked and chuckled gently. “Are you asking me to go steady, Bo?”

The Succubus let out a frustrated groan and shot Lauren a distinctly unamused glare. Snatching her hand away from the doctor’s, she grabbed the bedclothes and shifted underneath them so that she bumped up against Lauren’s legs. Sitting up, Bo didn’t care that the sheets fell away from her body, exposing her to the cool air of the bedroom. She needed to be close to Lauren, as close as was possible so that all the doubts between them, all their fears and hesitancy could be replaced only by the intimacy and warmth of their bodies.

Reaching out, Bo pushed Lauren’s hair back from the doctor’s shoulders and lay her hands there instead. After all they’d been through over the last few days and weeks; after the pain and uncertainty and the exhausting back and forth between them, Bo was tired. Physically, mentally worn out. And even if she wasn’t sure of the response she might garner, she was ready for honesty. She was ready for all that this amazing woman could offer her, and all that she might give in return. Looking into Lauren’s eyes, her heart began to race. No matter what the doctor might say, her brown eyes – rich and dark with infinite warmth and depth – told Bo that she might be ready for that, too.

“I like you, Lauren.” Bo’s voice was a little shaky as she began and her teeth came out to worry at her lower lip. “A lot.”

Lauren smiled and lifted her hand so that her fingers could curve around Bo’s wrist. “I like you too,” she answered, a bemused expression on her face.

“I mean…” Bo frowned and shook her head. When she’d thought about this little speech – and she had done, many times before going up against the Elemental – it had always flowed easily from her lips. Because in her head, Lauren had swooned and declared undying love for her and that had been that. But the reality of this – the reality of now was much harder to navigate. She sighed; the Lauren inside her head was a lot more amenable to discussions like this. A faint smirk tugged at the corner of her mouth, allowing a momentary flash of desire to flood her brain: the Lauren inside her head was a lot more amenable to many things.

But Real Life Lauren? She was afraid and hesitant and unwilling to allow vulnerability to surpass control. It was frustrating and endearing all at the same time. Taking a breath, Bo frowned into Lauren’s waiting gaze and began again.

“I spent the last ten years thinking I’d never be happy, you know? And – and you helped me realize that I could be happy. That being who I am…being what I am isn’t a death sentence for anyone who gets close to me.”

“I’m a doctor. It’s what I do,” Lauren replied gently.

“Is it just that, though?” Bo’s grip increased ever so slightly on Lauren’s shoulders and she leaned in a little, fixating on the doctor’s lips for a long moment before sucking in a breath and shaking her head. “Don’t you…I mean…”

“Bo.” Lauren slid her hand down Bo’s arm, the contact feeling as though it was dragging sparks down the Succubus’ flesh and eliciting a faint sigh from her mouth.

“I went against The Ash,” Lauren said in a grave tone, eyes clouding with the mere mention of it. “I betrayed his trust in me and contacted the Dark Fae. And I did it for you.”

“Yeah,” Bo agreed glumly. “And look at where that got us.”

“It got us here,” Lauren told her. “Whatever happens because of what I did, it got us here. And yes, I know that you’re Fae and I’m human and that’s about as far from ideal as it can get. But I don’t regret it. Not any of it.”

Bo smiled, relief palpable in her gaze. She shivered as Lauren’s hand travelled up her arm, over her bicep, tracing the muscle up to her shoulder and then dipping down to follow the lines of her collarbone. It was as close to a confession of affection that she was likely to get, and although she secretly wanted grandiose words and gestures, the greater part of her realized that this simple intimacy was more fulfilling because it was real. It was true.

“I tried to stay away from you, Bo,” Lauren murmured, her gaze following the path of her index finger. Her words seemed unintentional, drawn from somewhere deep inside her that could no longer contain them. “I even thought I could. But…” She sucked in a long breath as fingers crept from her shoulder up to her face, a palm settling against her cheek. Lauren leaned her head into it instinctively and closed her eyes for a moment, savoring the sensation.

“But?” Bo questioned, dragging her thumb over Lauren’s cheekbone.

Opening her eyes, Lauren looked deep into the eyes opposite her own and saw in them all the promises she wanted to make; all the loyalties she needed to keep. “I can’t,” she answered simply, shrugging. “I just can’t, Bo.”

“So…no more asking me to sleep with other people then?” Bo asked tentatively.

Lauren’s gaze clouded and she frowned, slipping away from Bo’s hand and leaning backwards. The absence of her touch was like moving from technicolor into monochrome and she swallowed, lest she allow Bo to encourage her to see the world through the eyes of the Succubus: black and white and absolute. Lauren knew better; her world was a myriad of shades of gray. The Light and Dark that had dictated her circumstances and her behavior were intermingled, indistinct and not easily defined. Bo didn’t know that. Lauren hoped that she would never fully understand the machinations of the Fae because to understand them was to be trapped by them, held to ransom by their ancient laws and loyalties.

“You almost got killed, Bo,” she said, her voice hitching over the telling of it. “You were weak because you’ve been starving yourself. For me.” Her head lifted and she looked at the Succubus, eyes darkened by her grave tone into shades of worry and distress. “I can’t ask you to do that and I can’t expect you to do that. You’re a Succubus. It’s who you are.”

“But what if I want to do that?” Bo protested, eyebrows lifting challengingly.

Lauren paused for a moment, teetering on the brink of a fight or flight response before she sighed loudly and shook her head. “God, you’re stubborn!” she glared at Bo in mock–severity.

“And you aren’t?” Bo responded in kind. For a moment, they simply stared at one another before Bo smirked and chuckled. “The Lauren in my head would want me to be all hers,” she said slyly. As Lauren opened her mouth with the beginnings of a question, Bo shrugged nonchalantly.

“You know,” she said, “when I imagine you in my head, you’re a lot easier to persuade.”

Standing up, Lauren couldn’t resist a faint laugh and frowned good–naturedly at Bo. “Right,” she answered. “And the Bo in my head tends to follow medical advice without being so obstinate.” Glancing at her watch, her face fell and she muttered under her breath, concern flitting across her features.

“I have to go,” she told the Succubus. “I’ve been away from the lab too long.” She reached for her medical bag and threw a quick smile towards Bo. “I’ll come back and check up on you later.”

“How about you give me a physical right now?” Bo knelt up on the bed, the sheet falling away to gather around her knees, revealing her voluptuous, beautiful and utterly naked body. She tilted her head onto one side and fixed Lauren with a gaze that hovered on the brink of enticing and decidedly lascivious.

Lauren was transfixed. She wasn’t sure if she would ever stop being taken aback by Bo’s body, the curves of it painted in vivid, exquisite detail in her memory, filling her mind with delicious and tantalizing thoughts that would flash into her brain at the most inopportune of moments. There was little else she could do other than stare at Bo, her gaze raking up the length of the Succubus’ body as if with her eyes, she could close the distance between them and caress every inch of skin, every camber and dip, every peak and secret hollow that she longed to trace with her mouth and tongue.

She’d seen Bo naked before, of course. She’d even examined her with the care and attention that her work for The Ash required. And she had touched her in passion, too. But it had been a passion borne from deceit – a deceit that was foolishly rooted in her efforts to save Bo’s life, but a deceit, nonetheless. Lauren had never had an invitation to touch. Not like this. This was overt and explicit and offered with the promise of a desire only a Succubus could instill in another. Without even touching her, Bo made Lauren feel as though she was under a Fae spell already, a jolt of want hitting her stomach and bleeding out into her whole body.

She felt like a teenager, standing there open–mouthed with a thrill of lust racing up her spine and lodging low in her pelvis. Of course, even when she had been a teenager, Lauren had never quite felt like this. She’d never experienced such unmitigated longing before, and even if she had, she was certain that it had never manifested itself in this way – with Bo’s eyes gazing at her so intensely that she felt stripped naked even though she was fully clothed.

Lauren shivered and swallowed hard. The lab could probably wait a little while longer.

Her medical bag hit the floor with a dull thud as she darted forwards into Bo’s open arms. The Succubus let out a delighted sigh as Lauren’s mouth descended on to her own and tugged at the doctor, pulling her closer. Her fingers scrabbled at Lauren’s jacket, attempting to push it from the doctor’s shoulders without breaking their kiss. As the jacket slithered down Lauren’s back and onto the floor, the doctor dragged her mouth down Bo’s neck, lips fastening on to a spot just above the collarbone and sucking hard. Bo’s head lolled back on her neck and she closed her eyes as a pair of hands trailed down the sides of her body, traversing the faint protrusions of her ribs, pressing into muscle that was taut and tense with longing.

Bo’s hands crept up over Lauren’s shirt, plucking at the material as though to remove it. But instead they continued their journey, sliding up into blonde hair that fell over her fingers and grasping at it, letting it wind around her skin. Tugging on it, Bo pulled Lauren’s mouth from her skin and held it so that she could look down into brown eyes that bewitched her. She wondered, somewhere in the back of her mind, if this was how it felt when she touched others with her Succubus abilities; if it was this all–consuming and powerful. Staring at Lauren, Bo wanted to remember the way she looked right now, her mouth half open and lips full with kisses yet to be bestowed; the flush along the top of her cheeks, bright red spots that contrasted so starkly with the dark of her eyes, shaded to burning russet by desire.

But it was the smile that crept over Lauren’s mouth that pierced Bo’s chest, casting tendrils around her heart that clutched at it and claimed it. It was a smile of discovery, of pledges made and seared as truth by the taste of Bo’s flesh. But more than that, it was the openness that Bo had craved so much, painted across Lauren’s face and through her eyes. It was everything…almost too much, and not nearly enough.

Becoming greedy and driven by a desperate need for Lauren’s touch, her mouth, her body, Bo shifted, lying back on the bed and pulling Lauren down on top of her. She heard a low murmur of laughter against her neck as the doctor’s mouth began tracing a line of wet heat from just underneath her ear down to where her jugular pulsated, barely able to contain the fire that heated her blood.

Lauren’s mouth moved downwards, nipping at the swell of Bo’s breasts as her hands sought to unbutton the shirt the doctor was wearing. She hovered over the Succubus’ body for a moment before leaning back and sliding off the bed onto her knees. The shirt soon joined the jacket on the floor and with it, Lauren’s chaste white bra. Bo let out a delighted laugh as Lauren leaned over her again, sliding her hands under the Succubus’ thighs, roughly pulling her forwards until she was perched on the edge of the bed.

A quizzical expression shaped Bo’s features as she struggled up onto her elbows and stared at Lauren, even now parting Bo’s legs with those strong, careful fingers and kneeling in between them. It was only when Lauren bent and began to kiss Bo’s stomach that the Succubus understood, comprehension flooding her eyes and closing them with a low groan of sheer pleasure. The moist heat of Lauren’s mouth on her belly made her twitch and squirm, but a pair of hands on her thighs held her in place and Bo let out another moan, back arching and shoulders pressing hard into the bed. Blonde hair spilled out across her skin and tickled over her legs; Lauren’s fingers began a torturous journey up her thighs as the mouth on her stomach started a similar road downwards.

By the time fingers slid inside her, Bo was already ablaze, her body the kindling to a passion that glowed, it seemed, from the very heart of her. She felt alive, as though the very essence of her existence was contained in the contact of lips, fingers and tongue on her flesh. Gasping, sucking at the air around her it felt full of Lauren, thick with her presence and her touch. Bo breathed it in and experienced an almost heady rush of power as Lauren’s mouth joined fingers and brought the Succubus to a whirling cadence of infinite pleasure. Her shoulders pressed into the bed as her body bowed, muscles tightening as her awareness cracked and shattered. She spread her arms wide, capitulating to the keening sound that broke from her throat, passing over her lips and into the air. It was exquisite, this feeling. Like falling, like floating, like being suspended in the moments between waking and sleeping where only sensation took hold.

It was only when Lauren crawled up the length of her body that Bo opened her eyes. The doctor’s face was flushed and streaked with bright swathes of pleasure that crept down her throat in crimson ribbons. Heart still pounding in her chest, Bo opened her arms and took Lauren into them, hand splaying out on the other woman’s back with a possessive curl of her fingers.

“How’s that headache?” Lauren asked with raised eyebrows and a laugh playing around the corners of her mouth.

Bo grinned lop–sidedly. “Headache?” she asked innocently. “What headache?” She tugged Lauren closer until the two women were lying as one, entwined together on the bed.

Lauren pushed her face into the crook of Bo’s neck and let out a humming sigh of contentment, flinging an arm over the Succubus’ torso. “I never took you for a snuggler,” she murmured, her mouth curving in a beatific smile.

Bo let out a grunt of laughter and rested her chin on the top of Lauren’s head, wondering at the clattering pace of her heart and listening to it resound in her ears for a few seconds. She’d never fully experienced the post–coital bliss of cuddling; never really understood its therapeutic effects or the desire humans had for it. Not until Lauren. The doctor had taught her a lot of things about her true nature, but the greatest lesson of all was the one that was contained in the texture of skin, the spaces between them and the eradication of those voids. In feeling love, Bo had come to learn that this simple intimacy was a craving almost as great as the one that her Succubus–self demanded.

“I guess that’s not what Succubi are known for, huh?” she asked.

Pushing herself up onto one arm, Lauren lifted her head, tendrils of hair hanging down to whisper over Bo’s shoulder. “I have no idea,” she shrugged. “I’ve never slept with one before.”

“Hm,” Bo pursed her lips and narrowed her eyes. “So are you going to add this piece of information to your research on me?”

Lauren let out a soft laugh and her brow crinkled in a self–conscious frown that Bo couldn’t help finding utterly endearing. “I’m thinking probably not,” the doctor told her in a low tone. Leaning forwards, she dropped a gentle kiss onto Bo’s lips and the Succubus tasted a memory of their lovemaking, sweet and coppery. It thrust remnants of pleasure into her chest and she drew in a halting breath as Lauren lay down beside her again.

“I won’t tell anyone,” she said, settling her head back onto Bo’s shoulder. “I’d hate to ruin your reputation.”

“Right,” Bo grinned, rolling her eyes. “Because the Fae think I’m aces so far.”

“It doesn’t have to be that way,” Lauren answered quickly. “If you chose to join the Light, you could – ”

She was silenced by the loud and insistent sound of her cellphone, coming from her medical bag on the floor. Moving away from Bo, she ignored the Succubus’ sounds of offense and her clutching hands and scrambled down the bed to reach for her bag. Throwing it open, Lauren snatched at her phone and looked at the screen. Her face drained of color and she cast a wary look back at Bo before lifting the phone to her ear.

“Yes?” Her voice instantly assumed a hesitant tone and she blinked quickly, turning her back to Bo and shoving at her hair as though they had been caught in the act by their parents. Bo frowned, pushing herself up onto her elbows and staring at Lauren’s back, hunched over as the doctor spoke into the phone.

“I…yes. Of course. I’ll be right there. No – no, I’ll be right there.” Lauren’s voice came in short little bursts that held worry in every syllable. Dropping the phone from her ear, she pressed a button on it and let it fall from her hand onto the floor. Bending forwards, her head hung onto her chest and she lifted her hands to cover her face.

“Lauren?” Bo was immediately behind her, hands smoothing down over Lauren’s shoulders and an anxious expression coloring her face. “What is it? What’s wrong?” A plethora of scenarios flooded her head, sending panic coursing through her veins and heightening the chill on her skin.

Slowly, Lauren twisted around and looked at Bo with eyes that were fearful and acquiescent, all at the same time.

“It’s The Ash,” she whispered. “He wants to see me.”

continued in

The Thirteenth Way: Loyalties