Fic: right rode away long ago (Bo/Lauren, Bo/Ciara; R)
right rode away long ago
lost girl - bo/lauren, bo/ciara; r. ~2000 words
characters do not belong to me.
college au. this was supposed to be holiday fic, but i'm kind of late. i hope you guys enjoy it anyway.
*
It starts at Chuck’s.
*
The blonde at the bar is beautiful and alone.
And Bo? Bo’s not the type to leave anyone alone at a bar, not for long, certainly not two days before Christmas, and most definitely not when she has an itch that - as soon as her eyes meet the blonde’s - she knows she wants the blonde to scratch.
Even then, when Bo slides up next to this woman at the bar with an extra drink in hand, all wide smiles and confidence, she half-expects to be turned down.
She’s not.
*
She learns a lot about Lauren that first night.
Not things that matter - like what kinds of movies she’s into or her favourite flavour of ice cream or even what she studies, but rather, things like the way she gasps as Bo leans forward and gently captures a nipple between her teeth, or the way her fingers clench just that little bit tighter when Bo finds that sensitive spot behind her ear.
It’s not bad, or anything.
Actually, it’s really, really good.
She wonders, briefly, if she would want to get to know Lauren, but then suddenly she’s being pushed back against the headboard and Lauren’s sucking on her collarbone and-yeah, okay, she can think about this some other time, when her brain can form words other than-
“Yes, there.”
*
The first call she makes after Lauren leaves the next morning is to Ciara.
“I win,” she says into the phone when Ciara picks up - or that’s what she means to say, except she’s in the middle of brushing her teeth, so it mostly comes out as, “Mmrrrggg.”
“Would you like to try that again?”
Ciara’s tone doesn’t conceal her amusement, and okay, it’s not like Bo forgot that one of her closest friends is not from Canada, but she’s forgotten how nice it is to wake up to that accent. And for a split second, she almost misses it, but-whatever. That’s really not relevant right now.
She spits, rinses, and tries again.
“I win.”
“Okay,” is what Ciara says, but the way she lets the word trail off tells Bo she’s waiting for more information. Which, yeah, okay, maybe Bo’s being kind of cryptic, but she doesn’t mean to be. Her mind is full of long fingers and golden hair and that’s pretty much as far as she gets before her brain short-circuits and is back to thinking about doe eyes and a strong jaw, and this needs to stop, because how can she concentrate on anything if all she can think about is-her?
“I slept with someone first,” Bo blurts out. She winces at how that sounds, then adds weakly, “So you owe me twenty.”
There’s a very brief pause on the other end of the line, and Ciara’s laugh, when it comes, is distant - but Bo’s phone is kind of shitty anyway, so it’s probably just that.
“I guess I do,” Ciara concedes, and Bo knows by the sound of her voice that she’s smiling.
“Want to buy me a drink tonight instead?”
*
A lot of the time, Bo doesn’t know how to describe this thing she has with Ciara.
“We’re not dating anymore,” is what Ciara usually tells mutual friends. (At least, that’s what she had told Dyson two months ago over some burgers and milkshakes at the diner down the street.
Bo was seated next to Ciara, trying very hard not to focus on the warm thigh pressed against her own. She remembers Dyson looking at the both of them skeptically before shrugging and popping a fry into his mouth. “All right,” he finally said.
A beat, and then two.
“All right?” Bo echoed.
Dyson had given her a look. “I don’t know what you want me to say, Bo.”
Bo rolled her eyes, and next to her, she could feel more than hear Ciara sigh - though whether it was directed at her or at Dyson, she didn’t know. From previous experience, however, she was ninety-percent sure it was directed at her.
“You guys will work it out,” Dyson added, not sounding the least bit concerned. Which shouldn’t have surprised her, because it was Dyson and he generally didn’t care much about their lady matters, and that usually worked out okay, because a lot of it was not his business anyway.
But this was one of those instances where Bo wanted some kind of reaction out of him.
After a few more moments of silence - during which he took a sip of his strawberry milkshake - Dyson looked Bo directly in the eyes and said, “All I’m saying is, the both of you have been best friends for as long as I can remember. Since before I even met you. Even if you aren’t together…”
He didn’t need to finish the sentence.
Ciara pressing into her side, comforting and warm and familiar, only seemed to confirm everything he didn’t say).
Bo hates to admit it, but sometimes she thinks that Dyson notices a lot more than he lets on.
*
The bar is open. The only reason this is surprising is because it’s a student bar in their tiny little university, and it’s closed half the time anyway, and-
Well, whatever. She’s not going to look a gift horse in the mouth.
She steps into the warmth of the bar and finds Ciara quickly - not a difficult task, as it’s empty save for a few people. Her phone buzzes as she makes her way over, so she flips it open, smiles when she sees it’s a picture of her best friend wearing a Santa hat, holding a bottle of José in one hand and giving her a thumbs-up with the other.
Merry xmas, hot mama. NYC isnt the same w/out u (hale jus wants 2 go shopping all the time), but jose and i will make do.
She shoots off a quick reply - haha, u and hale (and jose) hv fun! merry xmas 2 u 2 - before pocketing her phone and sliding into the barstool next to Ciara’s.
Ciara greets her with an easy smile and a kiss on the cheek, and Bo thinks that she should be used to it, this way of greeting people. Then again, Ciara stopped doing that when they started dating - after all, there were always better places her lips could be - but now that they’re back to being friends, it’s taking some adjustment on her part.
Maybe on Ciara’s too.
Bo’s about to wave the bartender over when her phone buzzes again, and a quick glance down tells her it’s her bestie again:
ps, i know its almost xmas but try not to sleep w ciara.
Two seconds later, it’s followed by another:
its called moving on, bo.
Bo sighs, and just as she’s about to put her phone away, it buzzes again.
or expanding ur circle.
She rolls her eyes, deciding not to dignify any of those texts with a response, and switches her phone to silent instead.
“Kenzi?” Ciara asks, eyes brimming with laughter.
“Kenzi,” she affirms, and then waves the bartender over.
Because she knows Ciara, and she knows that the next words out of Ciara’s mouth are going to be about Lauren and who she is and what she does and basically everything a best friend would want to know. And yeah, she’s over Ciara, and yeah, Ciara’s over her, but-
She really wants something stronger than a beer right now.
*
It’s always been easy with Ciara.
Easy to smile at her, to kiss her, to figure out what she wants. Easy to kiss her way down, past her shoulders, then her hips, and finally to where she wants to be, to where they both want her to be.
And maybe she should have listened to Kenzi. Maybe they both should have.
“You know,” Bo muses aloud as she presses a kiss to the inside of Ciara’s thigh. She’s rewarded with a gasp and tries not to smile. “We do this a lot.”
“Is- is this a recent observation, or-”
The rest of Ciara’s sentence is lost in a moan as Bo slips two fingers inside.
“I’m just saying,” Bo says as she pulls out and then pushes back in, slowly. She tries not to think about how much she likes watching Ciara’s eyelids flutter shut, how much she likes hearing her breathing speed up. “We don’t do the whole ‘we’ve broken up’ thing very well.”
“We could stop,” Ciara suggests much later, when she’s curled up under Bo’s arm.
Bo doesn’t say anything, though the words are on the tip of her tongue.
(She doesn’t know how).
*
Christmas is uneventful, but not a disaster.
Unlike last year.
(“Harder,” Ciara had urged, her voice a breathy moan as Bo worked her fingers down below, one and then two and then three. She was so lost - in the sound, the smell, the feel of Ciara - that it took her a few moments to register the sound of the door swinging open. And before she knew it, she had flattened herself across the other woman, something she would later be told was very noble, thank you, and then Dyson was walking in, followed shortly by Hale and Kenzi.
There was an extremely awkward silence, before she heard footsteps and the door slamming shut again. Outside, she could hear Dyson’s voice, muffled through the door, but clear enough for her to make out some words, and-
“Oh, god, is he with your parents? Are your parents already here?”
Bo had her face buried in the nook of Ciara’s neck, and she only looked up when she felt Ciara tremble underneath her.
“You’re - you can’t be serious. Why are you laughing? This has to be the single most embarrassing moment-”
She was pretty sure the ensuing kiss was only meant to shut her up, but it turned into something completely dirty in the span of two seconds. It ended up being mostly what she thought about during the horrifically awkward lunch with Ciara’s parents three hours later).
This time around, Ciara leaves sometime around three o’clock, promising to call the next day to set up plans to go ice skating.
Because apparently that’s the kind of thing they do now.
*
It’s New Year’s Eve when she sees her again, and it feels very much like déjà vu.
Lauren is sitting alone at the bar, and Bo has to admit that Lauren is the kind of girl who wears alone well. She slips into it comfortably, seems at ease while sipping her wine and staring out into the crowd of chest-bumping fraternity boys and gossiping sorority girls.
Bo likes her for it, a lot.
*
“I-hi. I was wondering if you were going to say hi.”
And god, Bo had forgotten what it was like to feel this way at the sound of someone’s voice, like her knees are a little weak and there’s not enough air going to her head, and she already knows that this girl - this gorgeous, doe-eyed girl - spells trouble for her.
She glances back to where Ciara and Dyson are sitting, and focuses back on Lauren when she realizes that the both of them are smiling encouragingly at her. Her voice is sheepish when she replies, “Yeah, well, I was working my way up to it.”
Lauren laughs. “And here I thought I was the one who needed to work my way up to it.”
Bo grins. “Work your way up to what?”
There’s a pause, before Lauren admits, almost shyly. “To buying you a drink.”
“Well,” Bo starts, feeling immensely pleased all of a sudden. “I wouldn’t say no to that.”
*
(Later, when everyone’s counting down, she’ll slide a hand to the nape of Lauren’s neck, pull her in and press her lips against hers).
She can think of worse ways to starting the new year.
*
lost girl - bo/lauren, bo/ciara; r. ~2000 words
characters do not belong to me.
college au. this was supposed to be holiday fic, but i'm kind of late. i hope you guys enjoy it anyway.
*
It starts at Chuck’s.
*
The blonde at the bar is beautiful and alone.
And Bo? Bo’s not the type to leave anyone alone at a bar, not for long, certainly not two days before Christmas, and most definitely not when she has an itch that - as soon as her eyes meet the blonde’s - she knows she wants the blonde to scratch.
Even then, when Bo slides up next to this woman at the bar with an extra drink in hand, all wide smiles and confidence, she half-expects to be turned down.
She’s not.
*
She learns a lot about Lauren that first night.
Not things that matter - like what kinds of movies she’s into or her favourite flavour of ice cream or even what she studies, but rather, things like the way she gasps as Bo leans forward and gently captures a nipple between her teeth, or the way her fingers clench just that little bit tighter when Bo finds that sensitive spot behind her ear.
It’s not bad, or anything.
Actually, it’s really, really good.
She wonders, briefly, if she would want to get to know Lauren, but then suddenly she’s being pushed back against the headboard and Lauren’s sucking on her collarbone and-yeah, okay, she can think about this some other time, when her brain can form words other than-
“Yes, there.”
*
The first call she makes after Lauren leaves the next morning is to Ciara.
“I win,” she says into the phone when Ciara picks up - or that’s what she means to say, except she’s in the middle of brushing her teeth, so it mostly comes out as, “Mmrrrggg.”
“Would you like to try that again?”
Ciara’s tone doesn’t conceal her amusement, and okay, it’s not like Bo forgot that one of her closest friends is not from Canada, but she’s forgotten how nice it is to wake up to that accent. And for a split second, she almost misses it, but-whatever. That’s really not relevant right now.
She spits, rinses, and tries again.
“I win.”
“Okay,” is what Ciara says, but the way she lets the word trail off tells Bo she’s waiting for more information. Which, yeah, okay, maybe Bo’s being kind of cryptic, but she doesn’t mean to be. Her mind is full of long fingers and golden hair and that’s pretty much as far as she gets before her brain short-circuits and is back to thinking about doe eyes and a strong jaw, and this needs to stop, because how can she concentrate on anything if all she can think about is-her?
“I slept with someone first,” Bo blurts out. She winces at how that sounds, then adds weakly, “So you owe me twenty.”
There’s a very brief pause on the other end of the line, and Ciara’s laugh, when it comes, is distant - but Bo’s phone is kind of shitty anyway, so it’s probably just that.
“I guess I do,” Ciara concedes, and Bo knows by the sound of her voice that she’s smiling.
“Want to buy me a drink tonight instead?”
*
A lot of the time, Bo doesn’t know how to describe this thing she has with Ciara.
“We’re not dating anymore,” is what Ciara usually tells mutual friends. (At least, that’s what she had told Dyson two months ago over some burgers and milkshakes at the diner down the street.
Bo was seated next to Ciara, trying very hard not to focus on the warm thigh pressed against her own. She remembers Dyson looking at the both of them skeptically before shrugging and popping a fry into his mouth. “All right,” he finally said.
A beat, and then two.
“All right?” Bo echoed.
Dyson had given her a look. “I don’t know what you want me to say, Bo.”
Bo rolled her eyes, and next to her, she could feel more than hear Ciara sigh - though whether it was directed at her or at Dyson, she didn’t know. From previous experience, however, she was ninety-percent sure it was directed at her.
“You guys will work it out,” Dyson added, not sounding the least bit concerned. Which shouldn’t have surprised her, because it was Dyson and he generally didn’t care much about their lady matters, and that usually worked out okay, because a lot of it was not his business anyway.
But this was one of those instances where Bo wanted some kind of reaction out of him.
After a few more moments of silence - during which he took a sip of his strawberry milkshake - Dyson looked Bo directly in the eyes and said, “All I’m saying is, the both of you have been best friends for as long as I can remember. Since before I even met you. Even if you aren’t together…”
He didn’t need to finish the sentence.
Ciara pressing into her side, comforting and warm and familiar, only seemed to confirm everything he didn’t say).
Bo hates to admit it, but sometimes she thinks that Dyson notices a lot more than he lets on.
*
The bar is open. The only reason this is surprising is because it’s a student bar in their tiny little university, and it’s closed half the time anyway, and-
Well, whatever. She’s not going to look a gift horse in the mouth.
She steps into the warmth of the bar and finds Ciara quickly - not a difficult task, as it’s empty save for a few people. Her phone buzzes as she makes her way over, so she flips it open, smiles when she sees it’s a picture of her best friend wearing a Santa hat, holding a bottle of José in one hand and giving her a thumbs-up with the other.
Merry xmas, hot mama. NYC isnt the same w/out u (hale jus wants 2 go shopping all the time), but jose and i will make do.
She shoots off a quick reply - haha, u and hale (and jose) hv fun! merry xmas 2 u 2 - before pocketing her phone and sliding into the barstool next to Ciara’s.
Ciara greets her with an easy smile and a kiss on the cheek, and Bo thinks that she should be used to it, this way of greeting people. Then again, Ciara stopped doing that when they started dating - after all, there were always better places her lips could be - but now that they’re back to being friends, it’s taking some adjustment on her part.
Maybe on Ciara’s too.
Bo’s about to wave the bartender over when her phone buzzes again, and a quick glance down tells her it’s her bestie again:
ps, i know its almost xmas but try not to sleep w ciara.
Two seconds later, it’s followed by another:
its called moving on, bo.
Bo sighs, and just as she’s about to put her phone away, it buzzes again.
or expanding ur circle.
She rolls her eyes, deciding not to dignify any of those texts with a response, and switches her phone to silent instead.
“Kenzi?” Ciara asks, eyes brimming with laughter.
“Kenzi,” she affirms, and then waves the bartender over.
Because she knows Ciara, and she knows that the next words out of Ciara’s mouth are going to be about Lauren and who she is and what she does and basically everything a best friend would want to know. And yeah, she’s over Ciara, and yeah, Ciara’s over her, but-
She really wants something stronger than a beer right now.
*
It’s always been easy with Ciara.
Easy to smile at her, to kiss her, to figure out what she wants. Easy to kiss her way down, past her shoulders, then her hips, and finally to where she wants to be, to where they both want her to be.
And maybe she should have listened to Kenzi. Maybe they both should have.
“You know,” Bo muses aloud as she presses a kiss to the inside of Ciara’s thigh. She’s rewarded with a gasp and tries not to smile. “We do this a lot.”
“Is- is this a recent observation, or-”
The rest of Ciara’s sentence is lost in a moan as Bo slips two fingers inside.
“I’m just saying,” Bo says as she pulls out and then pushes back in, slowly. She tries not to think about how much she likes watching Ciara’s eyelids flutter shut, how much she likes hearing her breathing speed up. “We don’t do the whole ‘we’ve broken up’ thing very well.”
“We could stop,” Ciara suggests much later, when she’s curled up under Bo’s arm.
Bo doesn’t say anything, though the words are on the tip of her tongue.
(She doesn’t know how).
*
Christmas is uneventful, but not a disaster.
Unlike last year.
(“Harder,” Ciara had urged, her voice a breathy moan as Bo worked her fingers down below, one and then two and then three. She was so lost - in the sound, the smell, the feel of Ciara - that it took her a few moments to register the sound of the door swinging open. And before she knew it, she had flattened herself across the other woman, something she would later be told was very noble, thank you, and then Dyson was walking in, followed shortly by Hale and Kenzi.
There was an extremely awkward silence, before she heard footsteps and the door slamming shut again. Outside, she could hear Dyson’s voice, muffled through the door, but clear enough for her to make out some words, and-
“Oh, god, is he with your parents? Are your parents already here?”
Bo had her face buried in the nook of Ciara’s neck, and she only looked up when she felt Ciara tremble underneath her.
“You’re - you can’t be serious. Why are you laughing? This has to be the single most embarrassing moment-”
She was pretty sure the ensuing kiss was only meant to shut her up, but it turned into something completely dirty in the span of two seconds. It ended up being mostly what she thought about during the horrifically awkward lunch with Ciara’s parents three hours later).
This time around, Ciara leaves sometime around three o’clock, promising to call the next day to set up plans to go ice skating.
Because apparently that’s the kind of thing they do now.
*
It’s New Year’s Eve when she sees her again, and it feels very much like déjà vu.
Lauren is sitting alone at the bar, and Bo has to admit that Lauren is the kind of girl who wears alone well. She slips into it comfortably, seems at ease while sipping her wine and staring out into the crowd of chest-bumping fraternity boys and gossiping sorority girls.
Bo likes her for it, a lot.
*
“I-hi. I was wondering if you were going to say hi.”
And god, Bo had forgotten what it was like to feel this way at the sound of someone’s voice, like her knees are a little weak and there’s not enough air going to her head, and she already knows that this girl - this gorgeous, doe-eyed girl - spells trouble for her.
She glances back to where Ciara and Dyson are sitting, and focuses back on Lauren when she realizes that the both of them are smiling encouragingly at her. Her voice is sheepish when she replies, “Yeah, well, I was working my way up to it.”
Lauren laughs. “And here I thought I was the one who needed to work my way up to it.”
Bo grins. “Work your way up to what?”
There’s a pause, before Lauren admits, almost shyly. “To buying you a drink.”
“Well,” Bo starts, feeling immensely pleased all of a sudden. “I wouldn’t say no to that.”
*
(Later, when everyone’s counting down, she’ll slide a hand to the nape of Lauren’s neck, pull her in and press her lips against hers).
She can think of worse ways to starting the new year.
*