Why do you care if Dyson is made whole again?

The Norn's words haunted Kenzi. The played in her mind as she listened to Bo's problems and they were seared into her eyes as she dreamed. They almost slipped from her own mouth on occasion and played over the sound of her music. When she read, the words were transformed into the question she was certain would haunt her for the rest of her life. Maybe Dyson was right. Maybe she did need glasses.

It was well after last call in the Dal, but Trick had allowed Kenzi to stay. He'd given her the strictest of orders to not drink him out of all his liquor and to leave the top shelf be. After she'd sworn on her cousin Yuri back home in the Ukraine, he'd wished her a goodnight and gone to sleep.

"Bar is closed," Kenzi said when Dyson walked in, a bit wet from the storm still raging through the city. He shook himself the way a dog would and Kenzi bit back a smart-ass comment when she remember just why he shook like a dog. Wolf, she corrected herself, D-man is an alpha wolf.

"Make an exception for a friend?" he asked and Kenzi responded by forking over the whiskey and a glass. Dyson toasted her in thanks and she settled into the routine of taking in the sexy wolfman's every minute gesture. It probably wasn't healthy and it probably wasn't acceptable friend behavior, but Kenzi found she didn't really care. Must have been the liquor talking.

"Are you alright?" Dyson asked and Kenzi snapped from her staring. Gazing, she told herself, but it still sounded creepy.

"I am grade-a material as always," she said, "Granted, alcohol does fuel my vanity, so I might not be as grade-a as I think." She was half-heartedly trying to bait him, a stupid thing she did to fish a compliment from a man who could recognize her half-hearted attempts from a mile away. It's not that she needed the ego boost, but who could complain about a compliment from a sexy, sexy wolfman?

"You took on the Norn," he reminded her and she just about choke on her drink, "That's not small feat, Kenzi. So I'll ask again, are you alright?" This time, she put some serious thought into his question as she immersed herself in staring at the amber liquid she was swirling in her glass. Was she alright? Of course she wasn't alright. She had the creepy crone's words on infinite loop in her head and this was one iTunes repeat she couldn't turn off.

"It's nothing," she said, trying to brush the situation under the door before more words could get out, "Just thinking about something that hippie hag said." Whoops. Well there went keeping a lid on her words.

"What did she say?" Dyson was suddenly in her space, not that she really minded, and the expression on his face said she better confess before he dragged it out of her. Knowing him and his superior fae genetics, he probably could.

"She asked me why it mattered," she found herself confessing, "She wanted to know why it mattered to me if you were made whole again."

"Why does it matter?" Ah shit. She should've downed her drink right after he sat down and ran home. She should have told him the bar was closed and then enforced those words. She should've gone home at last call and bid Trick a fond farewell. Hell, she should've just stayed home tonight.

"You're my friend," she said with the practiced ease of a talented con-artist, "You're the resident badass wolfman and Bo's soulmate. Wolfmate. Whatever it is you call your one love, mate thingamajig." She waved her hand in the air to reiterate her point while also hoping the gesture would send the topic scattering to the wind. Dyson, however, had a different idea as to what her hand should do and he caught it in his own, holding it steady as Kenzi had an 'oh, shit' moment because now she really couldn't escape.

"Why does it matter?" he said again, blue eyes serious and encouraging. His fingers were stroking her hand and she imagined they could coax out her darkest secrets from the depths of her soul.

"Why does it matter?" This time, with his knee pressed against her thigh and his thumb rubbing over her knuckles, she found she couldn't resist answering.

"Because," she said and choked on the word because she wasn't used to saying things like this, "Because if there was ever a chance of you being able to love someone like me, I figured you needed to have your love back first." She stared intently at the bar, memorizing the patten of the grain until Dyson caught her face in his hands and forced her to look at him.

"Kenzi," he said and she immediately knew that tone of voice.

"Don't," she said, "Don't say it. You don't need to say it because I know. I know it's always going to be Bo, that you love Bo, that you could only ever love Bo. Don't worry, I get it, I really do. Because it's always Bo and it's never Kenzi because she's just the human side-"

Kissing Kenzi was a very effective way to get the aforementioned human to shut up. So effective, in fact, that Dyson filed it away for future reference. Kenzi, on the other hand, tried not to swallow her tongue and attempted to remember the mechanics of breathing as Dyson worked a miracle on her mouth.

When he pulled away, Dyson rubbed his nose against hers and smiled, watching her eyes flutter before clearing and staring up at him. He drew his thumbs along the soft skin beneath her eyes and they fell shut at his touch.

"Kenzi," he said, prompting her to look at him. Her gray eyes were wide, fathomless, and glossed over as she waited for the game changer words she knew had to be coming. He pressed his mouth to hers again and she sighed against him.

"I'll try," he promised, "I'll try for you." There were no guarantees in his words. There was no guarantee that Dyson was wrong and Bo wasn't his soulmate. There was no guarantee wolves were capable of loving more than once in their excessively long lifetime. There was no guarantee that he would ever be able to love anyone as much as he loved Bo. There was no guarantee that he would ever love Kenzi.

The only definite thing was his mouth against hers and for now, that was enough.

•§•

a/n: And the Russian Wolf ship keeps on sailing. Really, you've got to admit that's a pretty badass ship name, right? And it even sounds like the name of a badass, epic ship… like the Titanic. And the Russian Wolf is probably going to be just as tragic as that. Don't agree with me?

Fave, flame, faint.

oxox