When it starts, (the weird bubbly feeling followed in quick succession by the warm [and kind of sweaty] feeling and the swoony feeling) Kenzi wants to blame some sort of fae craftery, when she wakes up, inhales, and thinks Bo. Insists to herself, over and over, when she catches herself watching Dyson a little too long, that something has to be behind this. (Like those strippers. Kenzi isn't attracted to strippers, but they were so juicy, and something wasn't right about it. That's the problem. Nothing about this feels wrong.) She slides her finger around the rim of her glass, downs another shot and (what the hell) asks Trick if a lot of humans fall in love with fae.

"Bo's not using her gift on you, is she?" His hands spread flat on the counter and his brow furrows.

Kenzi spits. "God, no." She shivers, thinking about the vacant-bright look she hasn't seen in the mirror (she's checked). She turns to the doorway where Bo and Dyson think they're being covert, her body tucked neatly against his, his hand spread wide across her back, muscles flexing. "Do you honestly think I'd be sitting here and not over there if she were?"

Trick reaches for a wash cloth and holds it, distracted. "Then I'm pretty sure I shouldn't ask what brought this up." Kenzi nods, sighing as she leans forward onto the counter. "Another drink instead?"

"Oh, Trick. Marry me."

---

The first time Kenzi ran away from home, the time she doesn't really count, she stayed on the sleeper sofa in the living room of a girl she knew at school. Cora had an older brother, and she watched him once (during the week that she stayed there) through the door ajar, as he stripped down and stepped into the steaming shower.

"What are you doing?" came Cora's voice out of nowhere, suddenly right next to her, her smile ready just behind full lips.

"Sh—" Kenzi jumped. "I just wanted to brush my teeth."

---

If she can't blame it on fae magics, she can't blame it on alcohol either, because she isn't drunk when it finally happens. Not even tipsy.

She blames it on Bo instead, Bo who is tugging the fabric back from her shoulder, a rough-looking cut jagging through her jacket, top and skin. "Ow." She blames it on Bo, who isn't ashamed of her body in the slightest and doesn't think twice about ripping the shirt clean off, leaving her sitting in their living room, dripping blood on the furniture, practically topless. Practically.

"Ow?" Kenzi repeats, staring open-mouthed at the wound. (Yes, a life-threatening injury will in fact distract her from Bo's breasts.) "More like holy fucking mother of the Dalai Lama—but I bet the other guy looks worse." (She wishes she could remember when she started thinking of Bo like this, like a sister, but so much more than that. Like a sister in a cheap porn. But Kenzi can't pin it down, no matter how many nights she lies awake, her fingers sort of dancing at the waistband of her pajama pants. Desire crept up on her like Boxing Day on a full stomach.)

"Much," Bo agrees, paling around the mouth.

"Step one: drink this." Kenzi grabs a bottle vodka off the table. "Vodka fixes everything. Step two: If you haven't called Dyson yet, let me to the honors while you focus on not bleeding too much, okay?"

Bo wordlessly hands over her phone, groaning a little as she settles against the couch cushions. It's bad.

So Kenzi presses her lips together and turns away (because really, she can't watch Bo in pain. She just… she can't.) presses two on speed dial and waits for Dyson to pick up.

---

Before she knows it (okay, between the two of them they're halfway down the bottle so it can't take that long) Dyson's in their place without knocking, kicking down the door like some kind of wolf-y lumberjack. His face is tight when he sees her, and the way he says her name, "Bo," makes Kenzi's heart beat double time.

He's down on his knees before Kenzi can scoot over, so she's sort of… smooshed between them. Which wouldn't be bad normally. It's just that she feels a little bit out of place getting a first-person account of the way Bo's eyes turn bright and her fingers squeeze around Kenzi's hand while she opens her mouth to Dyson's. He heals her. And it's something that Kenzi could never do on her own, her feeble offer of vodka having done little more than calm herself down. He heals her, and she takes it. Takes as much as he can give.

"More," Bo growls, standing up, swaying. Because she's still weak, though the cut looks a lot less angry, and the bleeding has stopped. She's so obviously weak, that Kenzi doesn't release the hold on her hand, moving her other to balance Bo's waist.

"Help her into the bedroom," Dyson says, and there's a softness to his voice that Kenzi hasn't heard before.

Bo looks hungry: Kenzi could lie and say it's the first time she's seen Bo like this, but it isn't, and she doesn't want it to be. Bo grabs Dyson's collar with her un-injured arm, pulls him close for a kiss—no magic this time. No exchanging of energy, aside from the very palpable physical type. The thing is, and Kenzi could lie about this too, that Bo doesn't let go of Kenzi's hand. In fact, she may be imagining it, but Bo pulls her in closer, tighter.

"I don't wanna intrude," Kenzi mumbles, breathing in Bo's scent, the scent of the two of them, together.

"I want you to stay," Bo says, and the words settle around Kenzi's stomach, burning up like waxed paper, flying. Dyson doesn't say no. There's an electricity on his skin when he touches Kenzi's hand in Bo's. And Kenzi wonders how she missed it, that he looks hungry too.

---

On Kenzi's 18th birthday, or maybe the day after, she drunkenly blew out a discarded (and precariously lit) votive candle and wished, half-careless, for a family.

It's funny, she thinks, remembering it later as she blows out candles on a truly decadent-looking cupcake cupped in Bo's hands, because she never imagined that a family would look like this. Could.

---

The noise Bo makes—something between a growl and cough—wakes Kenzi, a sudden thing, jerking her from sleep and off the edge of the— bed. Oh yes. The bed. "Are we seriously out of milk again?" Kenzi opens one eye, then the other, popping her head from under the sheets, watching Bo wander back into the room, feeling Dyson's warmth next to her. They're definitely both naked.

"Wasn't me. Swear." She holds up her hand in some approximation of the Girl Scout symbol. Or maybe it's victory.

"Says the girl who likes to drink out of the carton."

"Says the girl with the craving for milk." Bo looks good. Really good. Kenzi looks at her arm and if she hadn't been there last night when Bo got home, ripped open and bleeding, she'd call anyone who told her about it a liar.

"Touche. You do generally go for something a little stronger." Bo sets the empty jug down on the bedside table and leans down over the bed, over Kenzi so that she can see exactly how much, how well Bo's body has healed. Her stomach flips. And not in the hung over way.

"Mm," Kenzi answers, shoving at the blanket that got (lovingly, she assumes, smiling) placed over her torso some time last night after the sweat dried. "Stronger, faster, brighter." And she knows it's morning, and she's—yes—a little hung over, and Bo, were she a mere human would be more than spent from the sounds she was making last night, from the things she did…

But Bo's not human, and having abandoned her quest for milk is slinking on to the bed and straddling Kenzi, leaning in close to kiss her. Her lips taste distinctly like Dyson, soft and smooth and just wet enough. Kenzi whimpers, she always does (she always will), and leans up into the kiss, not startled at all when she feels Dyson's hand on her back, holding her up, his heat pouring through them as Kenzi begs for more.

"Morning breath," Bo mumbles, but comes back, her body sliding over the covers, her hand finding Dyson's, so it can't be that bad.