Closed To Lara

[tarnishedbadge]

Levi had been on "administrative leave" following everything that had gone down with Evelyn. It was the nice way of his captain saying that he looked like hell and needed to get his shit together before he came back to work. Levi hadn't bothered to argue considering he felt worse than he probably looked.

The investigation had taken a lot out of him, physically and mentally and he had had definitely needed some time to "get his shit together". Things were still weird with Lara. Not bad but they were definitely odd. They needed to talk but he hadn't been in any shape to do so until after a few days.

Sitting on his porch, drinking some coffee as the cool sea air blew in he felt better for the first time since he'd woken up and Lara didn't know who he was. He felt human again. There was still a lingering headache and he was sure he looked rough but Levi felt more like himself this morning.

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[asharpertongue]

The last couple of days had been an exercise in agony. The day after the ball, Lara had woken up in excruciating pain as her power had come back. It'd come in a steady but slow stream, like a drip feed of fire into her veins. She'd spent a good portion of that morning curled in a ball around Osha while she whimpered and licked at Lara's face.

After that first morning, her memories started to return. Slowly at first but then in a migraine inducing rush. It'd taken a day and a night of that before she'd managed to work her way up through her history to Levi and go in search of her phone to call him. There'd been a short but reassuring phonecall and a few texts while they both recovered - apparently his time while she was...gone, hadn't been any fun at all for him.

This morning was Sunday and Lara finally felt herself enough to drive. She was desperate to see Levi and the journey to his place seemed to take forever. When she finally pulled into his driveway, she was practically vibrating with the need to be close to him. It was all she could do to stop her hands from shaking as she walked up the path to his porch.

She smiled broadly when she saw him but the smile faded as she took in the fatigue and pain on his face.

"Levi..." She murmured as she mounted the steps. "God..."

[tarnishedbadge]

Levi could tell when Lara was getting closer. Once her memories were back and she was Matriarch again he'd felt the connection between them restored. He could also tell that she wouldn't benefit from him being around while she readjusted to everything, not when he couldn't be a source of strength for her. So he was glad when she showed up, a sort of warmth seeping into him at her nearness.

"And here I thought I was looking better," he said with a bit of a smile before sipping some more of his coffee. "Guess not so much."

[asharpertongue]

"In that I'm so intensely happy to see you, yeah, you look amazing." She said, coming to stop in front of him and searching his face. He looked exhausted. The rings under his eyes were dark and the corners of them were pinched, although she was gratified when they started to ease as she let a little of her power out to roll along their connection, hoping to soothe him a little more. "Jesus Levi, you look like you were hit by a truck."

[tarnishedbadge]

"Feels like it, but that's alright, I got the truck back in the end," he said, reaching out to grab her by the hips and pull her unceremoniously onto his lap and kiss her hard. He firmly believed that he looked so bad because he'd been without her, without how they were supposed to be, and he needed her like a drug. Levi was addicted to Lara in so many ways and being without her had taken a toll on him. At least that's what he was telling himself. Now that they were together again he could start to heal.

[asharpertongue]

Lara went easily as he tugged her down to sit in his lap. He kissed her hard and she made a desperate noise, kissing him back with the same intensity. She wrapped her arms around his shoulders and deepened the kiss for as long as she could until she had to pull away to breathe. Panting, she rested her forehead against his.

"I missed you. I didn't even know what it was I was missing, but I felt it." She murmured.

[tarnishedbadge]

"I had you but it wasn't the same," he said, running his fingers through her hair. Just having her that much had probably been enough to keep him sane long enough to figure out what was going on, but it had been a miserable existence. Definitely not something that he would recommend to others.

"I was a bit of a mess without you."

[asharpertongue]

The thought of him remembering her but not being able to convince her made her frown. "I didn't believe you. I liked you. I wanted to be with you, but I didn't believe you knew me. Then you dropped the story and we just hung out and I figured maybe you were still drunk from the night before when you said all that." Lara said, leaning into his hand. "I'm sorry, Levi." She said, pressing gentle kisses to his lips.

[tarnishedbadge]

"It's not your fault, okay? It's not your fault," he said, kissing her back. His own guilt ate at him, that he couldn't solve what was wrong earlier, that it had taken him so long to find out what had been happening to her. If he'd been a better detective he could have put the pieces together before it had taken such a toll on the town.

"You don't have anything to apologize for, okay?"

[asharpertongue]

"I should have known." Lara growled. "I should have felt it coming, but I was so preoccupied with the party and the deal with the new enclave..." She scowled. What it came down to was that Lara had let her guard down. She'd thought she was safe and secure and that the new deal would make things even safer for everyone. Of course she didn't know all the details, but someone had gotten to the other enclave and they'd been bought. She'd slipped and paid the price. And more to the point, she'd forgotten the one person that meant the most to her.

She cursed quietly. "I let someone take me away from you. That's more than enough."

[tarnishedbadge]

"And I should have seen a threat to the town before now. I should have come in contact with her before now and sensed that she was up to something," Levi said, shaking his head. He could play the blame game much, much better than she could due to a lifetime of it. Besides, he wouldn't let her blame herself for this. This was the fault of Evelyn, not Lara.

"I should have figured it all out faster. I could have pushed myself harder. I could have resorted to more extreme measures earlier."

[asharpertongue]

Lara could see the anger and frustration on Levi's face etching the lines back into it just when they'd started to soften and she wasn't about to allow that. She kissed him, letting a little more of her power wash over him to reassure him she was there and real and that she wasn't going anywhere. She deliberately kept her mind as quiet as she could because the gods knew that he didn't need any more pain on top of what he had clearly been through.

When she finally pulled back, she pushed her fingers through the hair behind his ear, scratching there so he could feel it while she watched him. There was a lot she didn't know and the questions were burning her up. At the same time she didn't want to force him to relive anything he didn't want to, which she supposed was the majority of the last few weeks, but she knew she had to ask.

"Levi...what happened? I know you told me some, but I...I need to know it all." She said gently.

[tarnishedbadge]

Levi gave a happy growl as her power moved over him and she scratched behind his ear. It was so good to have her remember what he liked, what sort of things calmed him at made him feel more at ease. Mostly those things were whatever made him feel closer to Lara. Right now he needed all of her all that he could get.

"Evelyn hired a witch to take your memories and Matriarch power from you. It looks like she had been planning to take over more and more of the town, starting with Grant Middleton."

[asharpertongue]

"Evelyn..." Lara spat the name like a curse as her eyes flashed white until she got herself under control. "I should have killed her years ago, but it wouldn't have been good politics." She closed her eyes and gathered her thoughts. "How did you find out it was her?" She asked, feeling the chill for the first time and pulling the thick blanket next to them around them both. It smelled of the sea and Levi and Lara breathed in deeply, wanting to set it in her bones so she could never forget it.

[tarnishedbadge]

"I found the witch that made the spell for her," Levi said, pulling her closer to him. It wasn't so much that he was worried that she might leave but that he just needed her to badly. As far as he was concerned they could sit like this the rest of the day and he'd be perfectly content. Until he had to pee from all the coffee he'd already had.

"Basic detective work. You find out how something could be done, who could do it, and then who had a reason to do it. Then you threaten that person until they tell you who hired them to do it."

[asharpertongue]

Lara couldn't help the surge of pride she felt course through her at the idea of him going at the witch that had spelled Lara so intently. She'd seen him on a case before but this can't have been in any way easy for him. Especially if he'd had to go outside the realms of what he was comfortable with in terms of using his own abilities. She knew he avoided using them if regular detective work would suffice but something told her this had been the exact opposite.

She nodded. "That can't have been easy. Witches are notoriously jealous of their secrets."

[tarnishedbadge]

"It helps when you don't need them to say the answer, just think it," he said. Almost absently he brushed at his nose, as if he was going to get another bloody nose just remembering how hard he had used his ability. The constant, intense use meant he had to popping pills all the time to manage the pain but it had been completely worth it because she was back with him now. He would have gladly paid a cost tenfold to what he had to get her back. Nothing would ever keep them apart again, he wouldn't let anything.

[asharpertongue]

That explained the exhaustion on his face. He'd been using his power to get answers. "Levi..." She said and she wanted to take back everything that had happened to him in the last few weeks and pour it into Evelyn. Her Mate had suffered, was still suffering by the looks of things, because of that woman's scheming and maneuvering. Lara wasn't a particularly violent person but her Mate had been hurt and she suddenly wanted to tear the world apart. She pushed the feeling aside and tried to breathe through the rage.

"We...it might be better to leave the specifics for another day." She said, flushing a little as the anger ebbed away to be replaced by concern for her mate. She sat back a little and looked at him. "Are you okay now? Physically, I mean. God...I hate that you had to go through this."

[tarnishedbadge]

"I..." Took a lot of drugs, broke several laws, went through withdrawals the last few days, didn't sleep much... "I feel better now. Not great, but I almost feel good, especially since you're here."

It almost scared him what he was willing to do for Lara. All his life he had been about doing the right thing, about following the rules that he upheld, but when her memory was gone and he had lost her Levi had been willing to throw much of that out the window. If anything even worse had happened to her there was no telling what he would do. Something told him it would be even worse if anything happened to him.

[asharpertongue]

There was a tremble at the edge of his voice and he was avoiding her eyes. Lara knew enough about Levi and how much using his power took out of him to know what he was telling her wasn't the whole truth. "I don't like the idea of you hurting yourself with your powers like that. I know how much it hurts you just to read me, so god knows what you must have had to do to cope with reading a whole bunch of people who didn't want to be read." That thought sobered her a whole lot, and scared her besides. "Maybe you should see a doctor." She murmured, pressing a kiss to his tired eyes.

[tarnishedbadge]

"You don't hurt, not anymore," he said with a smile before leaning more into her, taking what comfort her could. Lara was the only thing he needed right now, the only thing that he wanted. He understood why she had stayed away for a few days but now that she was here he didn't want her to leave. Not ever.

"I- yeah, I had to take a lot of my painkillers," Levi admitted, the words feeling heavy as he spoke them, like they didn't want to come out of his mouth. Levi didn't hide that he took painkillers from Lara but he still didn't like admitting it, or admitting how many he sometimes took. "And I've been to lots of doctors. That's why I have the meds. It was just hard after having you help me with the pain for so long and then suddenly not having you but needing to use my abilities more than ever."

[asharpertongue]

Lara blinked at him. She knew she helped with his pain and that a part of her power tended to linger with him, even when they were apart, but she had no idea that her power was part of his coping mechanism now. That made her absence all the worse. On top of that he was admitting to taking 'a lot' of his incredibly powerful pain pills. Levi wasn't exactly scared to take a handful when he needed them on a normal day so how many 'a lot' was made Lara wince. Those would have done a number on him without anything else and he'd still had to keep using his power without a break. She shook her head.

"Levi...Why didn't you tell me before this? I didn't...I wouldn't have stopped or anything, but I didn't know." She frowned. "I should have realised. This...me using my power on you isn't a good long term solution. What if something like this happens again?"

[tarnishedbadge]

"I thought that was why you did it, that you could feel how bad it was," he said with a shrug. It wasn't that big of a deal to him. He'd spent most of his life coping with the pain in various ways and this was just another way. Hell, Levi thought it was a lot healthier way than popping pills. As far as he was concerned this was the perfect long-term solution.

"And there isn't another solution, Lara. If you don't want to use your power on me anymore for that then don't. I've dealt with this my entire life without it and I wouldn't ask you to do something you're not comfortable with."

[asharpertongue]

"I can feel it and I do it because I don't like to see you suffer and because it makes me feel closer to you." Lara sighed. "It makes you happy too and I'm always going to do the things that make you happy if I can. But this isn't a..." She kissed him gently. "I'm not going to stop. Of course I'm not. I guess I was being selfish because it strengthens our connection and I can't help liking that." The more she thought about it the more she came to the conclusion that she'd known that he was relying on her to a certain extent for a while now and selfishly she'd given over to the instinct to provide for her Mate and not paid attention to what it would do to him if she was ever not around. Instinct had won out over logic and that was half the problem here. "It makes you suffer when I'm not around and that's what I just didn't think about. I should have."

[tarnishedbadge]

"Lara, I suffer in a lot of ways without you. I suffer when we're both at work and I can't see you. That's not a reason to not be close, Lara. I think of it as another way we were made for each other. I have a problem I can't fix but you can," he said, taking her hands in his and kissing them. It was maybe being blind about it but he couldn't help but see it that way. Everything about he and Lara being together was too perfect not to view it like that.

[asharpertongue]

Lara couldn't help the smile and the huff of a laugh. "You're not helping." She said, kissing his forehead as he bent over her hands. "We're supposed to be talking seriously about you over-using your powers. I hate seeing what it's done to you."