Washing Day
by Shockwave
It was the morning after the babysitting disaster. Rictor and Tabitha both got up late because the X-Babies had exhausted them and because they had stayed up late in the cafe talking. Tabitha was standing in front of the refrigerator, holding the door open. Her legs were spread apart in a stance that seemed to indicate that she was prepared to leap in and attack whatever food she may find.
Rictor was sitting with his head on the table. He looked like he was still snoozing and drooling too, but he was really watching Tabitha and drooling. He didn’t really want her to know this though. They had kissed last night, but at the cafe she had told him that she liked him but nothing would happen between them until she figured out what she felt toward Sam.
‘It’s always Sam,’ he sighed mentally. Guthrie was your perfect American. He grew up on a farm with lots of siblings so he was responsible and generous, he was polite, kind, eager to please and just so damn friendly to everyone! Rictor would hate him except that he was too nice to really hate. He knew that Guthrie didn’t try to be so great either, but that’s how any girl would see his gentlemanly manner. The fact that he didn’t even have to try was irksome at times. Tabitha liked Guthrie. Rictor hoped that she didn’t still love him, but he knew that she would never want to hurt him. His moody thoughts were interrupted by Boomer digging an elbow into his back and then leaning on it.
“There is nothing to eat here!” she exclaimed. Rictor winced, at the loud tone of voice as well as at the sharp elbow that was about to snap his spine.
“Well you know how it is. Bobby eats all the junk you like if you don’t get up early enough to beat him to it.”
She sat down and pouted. “But I’m starving! Gum tastes nice for awhile but it isn’t filling,” she groaned.
Rictor got up and went to the fridge. He looked around to make sure the ingredients were there and then suggested: “Want me to make you huevos rancheros?”
“What’s that?” she asked perking up.
“Well huevos are eggs. I’ll make you some Mexican style.”
She peered at him suspiciously. “I don’t know if I can trust your cooking.”
“Well these are a little hard to mess up, but if you’d rather cook something for yourself...”
Everyone knew that Boomer couldn’t even boil water without messing something up, so it was not surprising thatshe agreed to try it. Tabitha picked up the tortilla and stuffed it into her mouth. Rictor had made basically eggs on tortillas with hot sauce. ‘It’s pretty good,’ she thought as some of the salsa dripped down her chin mixed with the egg yolk. Rictor almost couldn’t eat while watching her. His mouth dropped open as he saw the sauce run down her chin and the image of him licking that sauce popped into his mind. To cover up, he stuffed the whole tortilla in his mouth forgetting that he had made his with super-hot salsa until it was too late. He jumped up as it burned his tongue, and ran to the sink with watery eyes. He spit his food into the sink and began to rinse his tongue off with water. At first the water didn’t do anything but make the pain worse, but slowly it began to cool his burning tongue (that or enough taste buds got fried that he couldn’t feel it anymore).
“That is way gross,” said Tabitha. She had pushed her food away and lowered her shades, going into what Rictor thought of a annoying mode.
Rictor glared at her. “Where do you think everyone else is?” he asked as he turned on the garbage disposal.
“I dunno. I got up at the same time you did.”
“I asked what you thought, should have realized you aren’t much for thinking,” he muttered sarcastically.
“Duh! And you aren’t very big on brains either mister,” she retorted, showing that she had heard his comment.
“True, but for a couple of brainless twits we sure got under Cable’s skin,” he said in a reconciliatory manner. She grinned. He went back to the fridge for something to drink that would soothe his abused tongue. “I still wish we had found out whose lingerie it was that we found. It also would have been neat if Cable had a surveillance camera in his room like the paranoid freak he was. Then we could have laughed up a storm watching him.” Rictor turned around to see Boomer gazing at him wide-eyed. It took him a second to realize that she wasn’t looking at him. Cable stood in the doorway close to, but out of the line of sight for someone standing in the fridge.
“I’d have thought that you might have learned the importance of privacy while you took care of the X-Babies yesterday,” he said sternly.
“There wasn’t exactly much time for quiet meditation,” gulped Rictor.
“Well I’m sure that I’ll find time for you to do that today,” Cable replied with a glare. He glanced at Tabitha. “For both of you.”
“Ijuscanbelievethis!” came Tabitha’s voice, muffled by the load of laundry she held in her arms. She dropped it on the floor and placed her hands on her hips. “I don’t want to be doing the teams laundry.”Rictor quietly started putting clothes into the washing machine, hoping she wouldn’t see him and start the blame tirade. No such luck. “If you had only kept yer big mouth shut!” she said, whacking him in the arm and causing him to drop the clothes he was holding.
“Don’t hit me!” he said annoyed. She crossed her arms and fumed, letting him do the job of loading the machine.
“At least it’s an industrial size washer,” she grumbled. Rictor finished stuffing the clothes in.
“Any idea how much soap it takes?” he asked.
“How the heck should I know?” she replied.
“Well you’re a girl,” he said. ‘Oh boy and how,’ he added mentally. She was wearing her nice tight uniform, and her arms were crossed under her breasts. ‘Very good to look at,’ he thought.
“That don’t mean anything! The box says family size. Just pour in all that fits.” He looked doubtful. But it was a box of powdered detergent and he didn’t see anything to measure with. He poured in the soap and slammed the lid to the washing machine shut.
“Now what?” he asked as he started the machine.
“We meditate,” she snapped. “Cable locked the door to the laundry room after he shoved me in here with the last of it,” she added. “He doesn’t want us to leave until it’s all washed.”
‘Locked in here with Tabitha. Cable can be a real @#$%^&* but the man does have some interesting ideas,’ Rictor thought to himself. Tabitha sat on top of the dryer and began to drum her legs against it as she swung them back and forth. He sat down with his back leaning against the dryer. For a moment is seemed she might have just kept on kicking even with him in the way, but then she just sat with her legs crossed beneathher and sighed.
“I’m sorry to get you stuck with this,” he said suddenly.
“What did you just say?” she asked in surprise.
“I think you know how I feel about you, Tabitha, and I don’t want to make you unhappy." She slid of the dryer to sit next to him. She had taken her sunglasses off, and she looked at him with those beautiful blue eyes. She looked at him searchingly, not even sure what it was she was looking for. He hesitantly raised a hand to touch her cheek, afraid any second that she’d cut him off with a slap and some biting comment. But she didn’t. His hand caressed her soft cheek. The skin was so soft and cool. She closed her eyes as his hand went back to caress her short but curly blonde hair. The curls were soft and luxurious. It felt so good to touch her. It was almost magical, this moment. It wouldn’t last though.
As they sat there next to each other, the washing machine suddenly belched a ton of soap bubbles all over the room, and more began pouring out from under the lid. “@#$%” exclaimed Rictor loudly as he leapt up and slammed the lid to the washing machine shut. The machine started to rock frantically. He jumped onto the machine and sat on the lid. “T-t-this i-i-s n-not g-o-o-o-o-d” he got out as he sat on the frantically shaking washing machine. The thing started to rock side to side like it was going to fall over.
“Get off!” shrieked Tabitha, realizing that his weight made the shaking worse. As soon as he got up the lid jumped open and soap and water began gushing forth, both a dirty gray shade. The water pooled about their feet and got the clothes waiting for their turn in the machine all wet.
“This is a disaster!” Rictor exclaimed as he scooped up some clothes to keep them from getting wet. Then he slipped on one of Siryn’s tank tops and onto the hard floor with a splash.
The sight of Rictor sitting on the floor with a shocked look on his face, bubbles dripping down his chin, his hair dripping in his face, and with someone’s shorts on his head made Boomer start to laugh hysterically. Then she tripped and fell face first into a pile of sopping wet clothes. It wasn’t long before they were both laughing so hard that their stomachs protested. It took them a good five minutes for them to calm down. By then the machine had stopped spewing bubbles as it went into a different cycle. Rictor looked at Tabitha’s happy and glowing face, and then glanced around at the mess. “What are we going to do about this?” he asked with a grin.
Tabitha smiled and squished the clothes in the puddles still left on the floor. “If we squeeze these clothes out I think we can call them clean after all the soap they’ve absorbed,” she said with an impish grin.
“What about all this water?” he asked, kicking up a spray.
“Hey!” She splashed him back. “It has to be going out somewhere,” she said.
“Yeah, there is less than before and the clothes clogged under the door.” Some careful exploration revealed a floor drain in the corner. “Perfect!” Rictor exclaimed happily. So they gathered up the sopping clothes and began wringing out the excess water over the drain. It took awhile, but when they were done and they loaded the wrung out clothes in the dryer. Then a bell rang, signaling that the clothes in the washing machine were done.
Rictor opened the lid and looked at the clothes pressed against the sides of the machine. They looked ok. He turned to Boomer only to see her on her knees shoving the water on the floor toward the drain. ‘She has no idea how appealing she looks,’ he thought. She was wet, so her uniform clung to her body even more tightly than it normally did, something he wouldn’t have though possible. Wet hair dangled around her glowing face as she stretched and contracted her body while she pushed at the water. He had to swallow twice before he could even look away. He turned to the dryer to turn it on and get the other clothes dry. He set the dial to what seemed to be a reasonable setting, hoping he wouldn’t end up shrinking everyone’s clothes. ‘I mean face it, if Siryn’s clothes shrink anymore then she wouldn’t be wearing anything and James would be blinded,” Rictor told himself. Those two had a very strange relationship. Terry knew how James felt for her and insisted that she wanted them to stay just friends, but then she went and wore these distractingly skimpy outfits around him. Hey, Rictor himself didn’t mind because Siryn was nice to look at, but as king of messed up love life’s he couldn’t help but feel sorry for James. At least when he wasn’t feeling sorry for himself.
Rictor could hardly believe what had been happening between him and Boomer these past few days. In fact, if this all was just a dream he hoped to never wake up. He wasn’t sure when exactly he started to love Tabitha. He had always been attracted to her though, and she seemed to like flaunting her body. But she wasn’t the one he fell for at first. He had fallen for shy, quiet Rahne. She was like this pure little angel, the ideal that he wanted but knew he couldn’t have. When he had run away to Genosha to marry her or take her away Tab had been like his best-friend, the one he told this too and the one he begged to go with him. But he had gone alone. Rahne wouldn’t leave to be with him. That’s when he realized that he didn’t really love her, that it was all a lie. He had tried to ignore it by giving in to his anger toward Cable, but then when he was back with X-Force and Tabitha again he was suddenly very aware of the blonde bombshell. His attraction to her had doubled because of how she had tried to help him before. When they had first met the attraction had been physical, so when she chose Sam over him it didn’t really hurt... much. But then when he was back he realized what an idiot he had been and how it was Tabitha he had loved all along. She was like him, she could relate to him and him to her. And he had lost her to the teams country gentleman. Of course she would want him over Rictor. He didn’t even know he wanted her to love him or that he loved her until it was too late. He had tried to be angry with her for awhile, but mostly he was angry with himself. He had kissed her roughly once, after Sam had been brooding over the External thing, and tried to tell her that he cared. But he had blown that. He had been angry and immature. He might still be now, but he had changed. Maybe this really could work and become more than just a dream.
“What are you thinking about with such a serious look on your face?” she giggled as she wrapped her arms around him from behind. He closed his eyes. It felt good to have her hugging him. She smelled like soap and like her, an indescribably female scent.
“Nothing,” he said turning around. “Just wondering if you are ticklish!” She squealed and ran as he chased after her to tickle her good. They played lighthearted games until all the clothes were done.
“I hope you’ve finally learned something?” Cable asked sternly.
“Yes sir,” mumbled Rictor. He didn’t really like Cable and hated having to act all obedient, but he also didn’t want to get stuck with any more awful chores.
“What about you?” he asked turning to Boomer.
“Uh, yeah. ‘Course.” He glared at her, but she just smiled.
“Fine. You two can go now. I expect you to stay out of trouble though and to report early for training so that you can make up for what you missed today.”
“Yes, sir!” Tabitha said, saluting.
Rictor grinned at her and they left Cable’s study. Sam met them in the hallway. “Got that whole mess cleared up now have yah?” he asked as he smiled at Tabitha.
Tabitha smiled back. “Yup! Chore free for the next few hours anyway,” she joked.
“You are always getting yoahself inta trouble, girl,” he said laughingly as he put his arm around her. She was about to give him another glib response when she saw a pained look flash across Rictor’s face from the corner of her eye.
“Sam, can we go somewhere private to talk?” she asked instead.
“Shure, gal,” he said smiling down at her amiably.
‘He really loves her,’ Rictor thought. ‘I can’t blame him either.’ Suddenly he felt real bad. He didn’t want the farmboy to hurt, the kind of pain Rictor knew so well. Was it wrong for him to want to be happy with her? Would she really be happier with him than with the good, honest, and sterling Sam? These agonizing thoughts flashed through Rictor’s mind as he watched them walk away. Rictor paced his room back and forth.
“What is digesting you?” Shatterstar asked, coming in and finding his best-friend pacing nervously. Shatterstar tried to remember the silly earth frases that beings his age seemed to utter, but they often came out wrong and made his teammates wince. Shatterstar knew that he hadn’t gotten this one quite right, but Rictor didn’t even react or tell him the correct thing to say. It was very disturbing. What was even more disturbing was that he didn’t understand what was wrong. Rictor never seemed to suffer from anxiety over a lack of recent battles, all their friends were in a good physical state, and although Rictor and Tabitha had kind of spoiled everyone’s vacation Shatterstar hadn’t liked the idea of a vacation anyway, nor could he see Rictor being upset over spoiling such a thing for others.
Rictor could feel Shatterstar peering at him and turned to see his friend regarding him like he had some sort of disease. “What?!” he exclaimed.
“That is the very question I asked when I entered and which you seem not to have even heard,” was Shatterstar’s reply. “Is there something wrong with your physical state?” he asked.
Rictor gave him a funny look. Rictor still wasn’t completely used to Shatterstar’s funny way of talking. He didn’t think he’d ever get used to it. “I’m not sick if that’s what you mean.”
“Then why do you pace? It is not the best method for exercising the musculature in your legs.”
Rictor sent him another funny look. “I’m not exercising, but now that you mention it a workout would get my mind off things.”
“Ah can’t believe this,” sighed Sam. He ran his fingers through his hair, tugging the ends in frustration.
“I didn’t MEAN for it to happen,” said Tabitha sadly.
“Tabitha, Ah love yah. You mean so much to me, gal. If yah think that you’d be happier with Ric then go right ahead. Ah want yah tah be happy. Ah’m just not so shure that this will make yah happy.” Tabitha nodded her understanding with her arms crosses hugging her chest. She didn’t trust herself to speak right now. “’Course it could just be that Ah’m jealous of him,” he added as he looked into her eyes. He hesitantly raised a gloved hand to wipe away the beginning of a tear from under her eye. Then he turned his head away from her. “Ah’ll always be here for yah,” he said in a choked up voice.
“I don’t want to hurt you, Sam!” she said kneeling down in front of him and making him look at her by cupping his chin in her hand. Tears were streaming down her face.
“Ah know that, but Ah can’t help but hurt if Ah’m gonna lose a gal as great as you. Don’t feel bad about it.”
She could see the pain in his eyes, and it hurt her. “Can we still be friends?” she whispered. That was what she was mortally afraid of losing. His advice, his friendship, the way he would scold and correct her. Their relationship hadn’t really been romantic. That had faded. It had become something more platonic to her at least. A solid friendship that she didn’t want to lose. She kissed him all the time, but it didn’t feel the same. It wasn’t electric like when Rictor kissed her. She kept kissing him because that was what she thought he wanted. She had given men what they wanted all the time so that they would give her what she needed. A long time ago that had been money. With Sam it was friendship and support.
“Always, Tab. Ah’ll always be here for you, always your friend. Ah swear... Just... Gimme a few days to get used to this, ok gal?”
She nodded and smiled as she cried. “Thank you so much Sam. You’re the best friend I’ve ever had and that means the world to a worthless street brat like me.” She hugged him and left.
Now that he was alone, Sam turned to face the wall and sobbed his heart out.
She watched him work out for awhile, just enjoying the look of him. She didn’t know if this would work, if it even had a chance to, but she was going to try. Sam had given her so much. He had taken away a lot of her fear toward men and relationships. She would always be grateful to him. She knew he was hurting, but she realized that it wouldn’t be right to stay with him if she no longer felt the same way. It would hurt him more in the end, and it was the kind of dishonesty she wouldn’t be able to live with if she did it to such a nice, kind and caring soul. She would always love him, but as a friend or a big brother.
Rictor felt her presence suddenly. He wasn’t sure what it was that told him she was there. Maybe it was that he was just so in tune with her the hairs on his arms seemed to tingle when she was around. He looked up. She was standing in the doorway. Her eyes were red, but when she saw him looking at her she gave him a small smile. Words would never be able to describe the elation that filled him. Nothing that mattered to him before, family, revenge, pride, none of it mattered. Just her. Her and her sweet smile so full of promise. He could have died in that moment. If happiness could kill he would have. He dropped whatever it was he was doing, and indeed forgot that he had been doing anything at all to take a tentative step towards her.
She rushed forward into his arms. “I don’t know if this will work out, or if we’ll be happy together, but I’m going to try it no matter what the consequences. I’m trusting you with my heart. Don’t screw this one up,” she whispered fiercely in his ear. Then she kissed him. It was a kiss full of fire and love, but a kiss full of wonder and exploration as well.
Shatterstar just looked at them. Wasn’t Boomer Cannonball’s girlfriend? He was definitely very confused and unsure of what to do. He wouldn’t have minded standing there and watching, but earth people didn’t seem to like that all that much. His experience was with battles, not with romance or physical attractions. The little he understood he had learned from their television and watching Rictor chase women and get slapped a lot. So he thought that it might be appropriate to leave, but they were blocking the door. He shrugged and went back to his workout, ignoring them. Maybe in the future he would understand the customs of this planet better. Until then things were likely to remain very... interesting.