Omen of Rose

Better Enemies Than Friends

"So, you're the new Ash," she said, pulling the sheet over her legs and reaching over to the bedside table.

"Yeah," he said, staring at the ceiling, still a little out of breath.

"Not bad," she blew the smoke out through her nose. "For a first time." She laughed and took another drag off her cigarette at the look on his face. "Don't worry, this is a one time deal. Kind of an ancient tradition."

"I know I inherited this job from a dead guy," he said, sitting up and giving her a hesitant look. "So I can't really say my training's been thorough, but somehow I don't see this as being part of the official lore."

"This is the way it's always been," she shrugged. "Better a mediocre one night stand at the beginning of a professional relationship than centuries of unresolved sexual tension." The smoke emerged from her mouth in a perfectly shaped ring.

"Right," Bo let go of Lauren's hand. "I think that's enough for now."

"No, no," Lauren said, looking at her clipboard and jotting something down with the other hand. "We should do some more of this. We're making some real progress."

"Yeah, we're making something alright," Bo mumbled to herself.

Lauren put her hand on Bo's thigh this time. "Increasing the contact surface," she explained. Bo covered Lauren's hand with her own.

A light red current ran up Lauren's hand, shy and weak at first, contained by Bo's hard earned skill. Lauren stayed perfectly still, looking down at her shoes; Bo couldn't tell whether she was holding her breath. Finally she looked up, eyes hungry and desperate and Bo felt the warm buzz turn into a flame, the energy flow into her body liquor, burning its way through her cells, leaving her invigorated and powerful, giving her weight, filling her up like ambrosia--

"Enough." She pushed Lauren away so suddenly she dropped the clipboard on the floor.

"Right," Lauren said, breathing heavy, looking at the floor again. After a few seconds of silence she took a deep breath and flashed Bo an apologetic smile. "Sorry, I got a little carried away."

"No, it's all right," it's my fault, Bo's about to say, but Lauren interrupts her.

"No, really," she says. "I shouldn't have pushed the dosage. Sometimes I get the doctor part of my job and the scientist part mixed up a little."

"It's OK," Bo says, a little flustered. She's still not used to people apologizing when she was the one sucking the energy out of them.

"Your self control is really coming along," Lauren smiled, more sure this time, more solid around the edges. "I'm impressed."

"Not enough, though," Bo said, jumping off the exam table. Not enough to take you home with me.

"We have time," Lauren said, as Bo put on her jacket.

"I've never been a patient sort of girl," Bo said, unable to keep the bitterness from her voice. These sessions always left her shook up inside in a way that had nothing to do with learning to not kill people.

Lauren smiled as she handed Bo her bag. "I guess that'll have to be another learning process."

"No, really, you have to help me!" Bo said urgently into the phone.

"What's wrong?" Dyson pushed away from his desk, half-finished report left open on his computer, and reached for the gun in his drawer.

"It's the goblins!" Bo said.

"The goblins?" Last Dyson had heard goblins were utterly harmless creatures who--

"They've eaten all our sugar pops!" Bo said, the barely restrained laughed now clearly evident in her voice.

Dyson sat back down and let out the breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding. "Seriously, how drunk are you guys?"

"The answer is 'very'," Kenzi's voice came over the phone. "But she's not kidding, wolf boy. We're out of sugar pops and the goblins are to blame."

"It's not even four p.m. for fuck's--" he starts.

"Shut up! Goblins eating all your sugar pops is totally a valid reason to get hammered!" Kenzi countered in his ear. "Unfortunately, it's been a long day of slimy monsters and disturbing moral ambiguity and the lady and I were really counting on those sugar pops as a pick-me-up."

"You do realize I'm at work? This little thing I like to call being a police offi--"

"Did I say day?" Kenzi shouted. "I meant the last 48 hours which we have spent with almost no sleep and definitely no delicious sugary substances!"

"Well, that's just--"

"What I am saying, wolf boy," Kenzi kept on shouting right over him. "is that if you manage to swing by say, in the next twenty minutes or so with a bag of sugar pops and your fabulous ass you might be providing some much needed replenishing to two disheartened young vigilantes."

Dyson knew Kenzi well enough by now to read the subtext in between the flashy neon lines. "Is Bo OK?"

"God," Dyson could hear Kenzi's eye roll all the way across town. "Just get here, OK? And seriously, don't forget the sugar pops because I happen to not find your penis to be a magical healing instrument."

Dyson was really glad Kenzi and Bo had switched all their communication with him to his cell instead of his work phone, for the third time that week.