#thank u nicole for sending me this. i love getting terrible news.

[l1veleak]

😭 well. porsche 6 lost their Indianapolis podium following inspection. all i can truly do is laugh.

somehow still leaving this dreadful place with a tanjam podium

[takadasaiko]

38 & 40? Bobo & Waverly? thank u

FFN I AO3

Summary: Waverly just needs a little hope that her childhood friend wasn’t completely a lie. Prompt #38: “Everyone keeps telling me you’re a bad guy.”

Who He Was (Fallen Series)

She hadn’t told anyone where she was going. Not Wynonna, not Doc, and not even Nicole. They would have wanted to go with her. To protect her, but this was something she had to do alone. This was something she needed to face alone, and as those gates pulled open and she saw them watching her warily, she knew they wouldn’t touch her.

No one harms the baby. My word. My law.

For those that were there in the trailer park, Bobo Del Rey’s law still stood and they wouldn’t risk his wrath by harming a hair on Waverly Earp’s head.

She’d been there before and she thought she remembered there being more people. The humans must have left the park and between how many Revenants Wynonna had put down so far in her tenure as Heir and those that had fled to Bulshar’s side, there weren’t many of those left either. Fewer than she had assumed, at any rate, and while she knew Bobo had said that he’d bring as many to the fight against the demon that had cursed them all as he was able, the Call had taken many away.

“Lost, little Earp?” a voice asked and Waverly spun, wishing now that she’d brought her shotgun with her. No. She was there in peace. This one was just trying to spook her.

“I’m looking for Bobo.”

“She’s looking for Bobo,” another Revenant chuckled, pulling Waverly’s attention in the opposite direction. “You’ve got guts, Little Sister, coming here.”

“That’s enough.”

Both Revenants shrank back at the deep, snarling voice and Waverly saw Bobo Del Rey rounding the corner, his eyes flashing red as he looked at them both. “Go.”

One word was all it took and they ran, tripping over each other to get away. She watched red fade back to blue, the darkness around his eyes easing back to his natural pale, and there was something almost worn about his expression. Like he was being stretched in too many directions these days.

He turned those tired blue eyes on her. “I told Wynonna to be patient. Not in her vocabulary, is it?”

It took her a moment to realize what his immediate thought had been. It made sense. It wasn’t like she’d gone out of her way to seek him out a great deal since he’d joined their side. “Wynonna didn’t send me. I came to see you.”

That startled him and his gaze shifted, sweeping the area. When those blue eyes came back to meet hers she saw him tilt his head, motioning to follow. She did, and as she had to quicken her own pace to keep up with his long stride a flash of memory broke loose to the front of her mind of a little girl skipping to keep up with her large, fur coat-clad friend that everyone else thought was imaginary. Her secret best friend.

Bobo led her to a trailer with a canopy stretched out from it, a foldout table and a couple of lawn chairs next to it. She saw maps of Purgatory and the surrounding area on the table, pencils lying next to them and it looked like he’d left his work very suddenly. He’d heard her voice and come running. Probably without even stopping to think about it with as quickly as he’d covered the space between the trailer and where she’d been.

“What’s so important that it’d bring you here?” he asked, his voice gruff and irritable.

“Should I not be here?”

He quirked an off-colour eyebrow at her. “Ain’t the smartest move you’ve ever made.”

“They won’t hurt me.”

“What makes you so sure?”

“You won’t let them.”

His expression was guarded, but there was a flicker of something just behind it and he pushed a short breath out through his nose, bending back over his table and his maps.

Waverly waited a long moment before walking over to one of the chairs and taking a seat, sinking down lower than she had expected in it. Silence stretched between them and he seemed content enough to let it as he studied whatever it was that he was studying, her eyes fixed on him. “I’ve been… thinking a lot about my childhood recently. About you and me and our friendship and… exactly what that meant. You were one of the most important people in my life when I was little.” He didn’t look up, but he didn’t tell her to shut up either. “You were this… giant that would chase away everything scary. Even though you never came to the house - I guess you couldn’t, could you? - I used to think that you would come scare off any monsters under my bed. They wouldn’t dare come for me because I was your angel and you would protect me.” His scribbling had slowed, so she knew he heard her, even if he was doing his damndest not to respond. Waverly pursed her lips together. “Who are you really, Bobo?”

The pencil finally stopped and she saw him hunch just a little more. “You know what I am.”

“I didn’t say what. Who. Who are you really? Wynonna told me what she saw in her vision quest. Robert Svane was a good man. He was friends with Wyatt Earp-”

“Keep your voice down,” he growled.

“- and knowing you like I did as a kid, I can believe that now. I just… everyone tells me you’re a bad guy. And you are, but you’re not. Who are you really?”

Bobo sighed, straightening and running his hand through across his now white mohawk, smoothing the wild hair down a little, and Waverly waited as patiently as she could. Finally he set his pencil down, turned, and took a seat in the chair next to hers. “Fine,” he said at last. “What do you wanna know?”

There it was. The opening she really needed. Waverly found herself smiling and she opened her mouth to let the first question tumble out, closing it again as she realized that she couldn’t ask them all at once. She had to choose one. Should she start small and work her way up? That really depended on how many questions he gave her. If he got frustrated or bored he might cut the conversation short. She had to be careful. She had to choose wisely. “Why me?” Or just ask the one that burned the deepest. That worked too. “If you’re not my father, why me?”

“I never said I was your father.”

“That doesn’t answer the question.”

“You’re kin.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means you’re kin.” He reached a hand up, his thumb working at the inside of the bridge of his nose. “It’s not a simple question. Not a simple answer and… There are bigger things to focus on before I can tell you. You ain’t a Revenant, if that’s what you’re scared of.”

“I’m not scared.” He snorted a laugh and she shot him a glare. “Fine. Why’d you stop coming to see me when Daddy died?”

She watched the very subtle changes in his expression and there was a hint of sadness there. “I was… trying to do right by you. Angels don’t need to live in a demon’s shadow.”

Her lips curled just a little at the corners and she caught his gaze. “Has anyone ever told you that you’re kinda a drama queen?”

“There’s that judgy Waverly again,” he teased, and there was something about it that felt right. That hint of a smile that made it to his eyes, the way his tone lightened. She remembered it. She had held onto it for a while, hoping that he’d come back for her. He’d told her once that he’d thought about saving her too. If he’d asked her then, she would have gone willingly. She would have lived out her childhood with her Bobo, hoisted up on his shoulders and sleeping curled up in his coat. She could have very easily have told him yes. She would have told him yes.

Waverly blinked, a tear slipping down her cheek and she sniffed hard. Another question. She needed another one that wasn’t quite as close to home. Her thoughts about what he’d said in that treehouse led to the next one. “Willa. What was the deal there?”

“The deal?” he echoed.

“Did you love her?”

There was a long pause and he refused to meet her gaze. “Yeah.”

“Did she love you?”

“Sometimes.”

“How did that… work? You have to see how creepy that was, right? I mean, I get that everyone’s really young compared to you, but, I mean, you stole her away at thirteen.”

“I didn’t steal her anywhere. I saved her when the others wanted to do…” He stopped, his teeth clicking together and he looked like he was considering his phrasing. “Wanted to do terrible things,” he finished slowly. “Everything else came later. On her terms. It was always on her terms.”

Right up until the end, Waverly thought as she watched him. He looked so beaten down, so hurt, and she wondered if he’d heard the words Wynonna had told her that Willa had said. She’d left him to die. She’d been willing to leave him to die to get free. He had been collateral damage just like she and Wynonna had been.

She reached forward on impulse, her fingers touching the back of his hand and pulling his attention. “You put on a really good act, but I think they’re wrong. You’re not as bad of a guy as you want them to think.”

He blinked and she could see the way his eyes glistened just a little, trying very hard to hide those emotions. It was dangerous for him to show them, surrounded by the other Revenants like they were. These demons that he had to earn the respect of to make sure they didn’t desert them all for Bulshar.

Waverly gave his hand a quick squeeze before releasing it. “It’s okay. Your secret’s safe with me. I won’t tell.”

Bobo huffed and stood, gathering up his maps and rolling them. “C'mon.”

“Are those the coordinates that Jeremy’s been waiting on?”

“Who?”

“Jeremy. You know, about this tall, totally geeky in all the best ways? Used to work for BBD.”

“Oh. Junior.”

“You didn’t know his name, did you?”

He shrugged, the glint of a smile back, and Waverly rolled her eyes theatrically as she followed him towards the gate. Things weren’t going to somehow return to the magic, woodland princess fairy tale games of her childhood, but there was a chance they could find something new. He’d been her dearest friend once, then gone, and then her enemy. Sometimes things came around full circle. They took time, but she’d gotten what she had come there for. Hope. Hope that he hadn’t used her and hope that he wasn’t lying to them now. Hope that the man that Wynonna had met in her vision quest was the same one that had pulled her out of the icy waters as a little girl. Hope that she could know who he was, not just what he was.

Notes: I’ve been having trouble with a Bobo and Doc fic I’m working on, so I decided to dabble in some Bobo and Waverly feels. That always seems to help.