Saying Yes: Part 1
by Siarade
All characters herein are the property of Marvel. No profit is being made for this. Done for Entertainment purposes only.
*Yes.*
*Yes.*
*Yes.*
Nathan opened an eye - it was the sixth "yes" he'd registered, and finally decided, with the increasing irritation put into each successive "yes," that he had to know who the hell was pissing her off so much that she wasn't paying attention at all to the link. Rolling over, he scattered the comforter and kicked his legs free, finding the floor belatedly and making his way out of the bedroom.
Downstairs, Domino was leaning on a kitchen counter, with the cell phone pressed to her ear and fury inside her eyes. She met his curious glance with that fury, refusing the explanation his expression asked for - the link burned, crackling, and he poured himself a cup of coffee while she said, once again,
"Yes."
The first cup washed a bit of the sleep out of his head; he could hear more clearly now, popping and hissing along their link, the source of her rage. Finally, on his third cup - which he drank behind the safety barrier of the kitchen table, he heard a break in the pattern.
"All right, that's it. I called to have my service fixed a month and a half ago. I spoke to a hillbilly named Todd. He told me it would take two weeks. Now, not only does my phone not _work_, but my voicemail was turned off and all of my calls have been forwarded to someone else's number. Do you know what happens when someone tries to call me? They end up speaking to someone at an Asian massage parlor. I have had to explain to business associates that I am _not_ running a massage parlor and that I am _not_ running a whorehouse. No, I am not shouting. I am staying perfectly fucking calm."
Through static, Nathan could hear the chump on the other line - and he smothered his chuckle in another swallow of coffee before Dom decided to come kill him for it. As it was, she shot him a glare promising a painful death involving tools of mass destruction and Ricky Martin.
He stared into the swirling black inside his cup, and sighed - everything felt heavier inside him. In the course of his lifetime, he'd run a thousand little excursions like the one last night, but this time he felt more exhausted than usual, and Dom, by circles under her eyes, seemed to feel the same. His blood moved like sludge, his heart reluctant to beat, and his bones were lead inside him, miserable in movement, his muscles the only thing keeping him from sinking to the bottom of a wearied emotional ocean. Maybe it was because they'd been mostly kids - twelve year-old grey eyes watching Domino, raising the gun to her back, small finger wrapped on the trigger - he blinked hard and shook the image free, before the watery rage started to boil again.
"At this point in the conversation, I will admit that _you_ are probably not responsible for the lack of a working phone in my house. However, because I don't fucking give a shit, I'm going to blame you and tell you that you will be held responsible if you don't fucking fix my goddamned son-of-a-bitch ass phone! Now THAT is shouting!
"So here's how it goes, dipshit - I want a nice little van with your company logo to pull up outside my house with someone inside who can fix my phone, which they'll do, before noon, or I'm going to come to your office, rip out your tongue and wash my car with it. Then I'm going to tie your dick in a knot and hang it from my rearview mirror. Now, I may be like every other demanding pain in the ass customer you've spoken with today, but I have one thing that sets me apart. I know your address." She reeled off the numbers, and Nathan felt the panic moving in the man's voice as he agreed to her terms.
She hung up with a beep, and joined him at the table, sitting across from him. "Mornin'," he said, and she idly took the coffee cup from his grip to take a drink. He let her, but only because it was his fourth cup and he was feeling all right.
"I loathe customer service people. They always suck at their job."
"Mmm-hmm," he agreed, smiling just a tiny bit. He glanced into her eyes - and noticed a distinct lack of satisfaction there. Usually, Dom walked away from a rising bout of intimidation over a jerk with a general air of smugness, but she looked like she was barely keeping her head up. Suddenly, with a strange churn, his blood sped up.
"Sleep any?"
Her chin swung up and down slightly. "Some."
He leaned back, watching her; she was wearing one of his dress shirts, its unbuttoned cuffs swallowing her hands all the way to her knuckles, even pulled up as the were. A line of dried red discolored the left shoulder - skinny arms, even for a boy that age, lifting the sights of the rifle - and chewed, red-rimmed healing skin on her knuckles.
_When did routine stop being routine, Dayspring?_ He could still picture those gray-blue eyes, he could still look out of them and see Domino standing in the path, and the rage started to bubble again. He swore silently, and said half a prayer. He closed his eyes against the visions in his head.
"Fuck," she said, rubbing her eyes and rising to her feet. "I need a vacation." She opened up the fridge and peered inside ambivalently.
"That's not such a bad idea, you know."
She grinned cynically at him over the refrigerator door, leaning her arm across it. "Don't tell me. You want to go to Disneyland."
"You know I'm not good at rollercoasters. Or oversized talking mice in polka-dotted underwear."
She chuckled, and he left his coffee on the table as he came over to her, slipping his arms around her waist. Her skin was warm underneath the cotton, and she leaned back against him. For just a split second she sagged, and though he didn't mind holding her weight, she put her muscles under her again. His mouth brushed the top of her head.
"Really, it's not a bad idea. You could use it. We both could."
"I'm fine, Nate."
"Vacations aren't about not being fine, Dom. There're just about having a good time for a while. And it's been what, twenty years since you gave yourself a break?"
"When was the last time you took one, huh, kettle?"
He snorted into her hair, looking past her crown to stare mindlessly at the contents of the fridge. Mayonnaise, milk, leftover apple pie from a bakery in town. "We deserve it, you know."
"We screw around plenty."
"No, we screw plenty-"
"Shut up," she laughed, elbowing him in the side and turning to face him. He put his arms on either side of the fridge, pinning her in. "C'mon, Nate, we're not exactly slaves to the grind, you know. We work, sure, but how many times have we taken off for a night or two?"
"That's just it, Dom. I'm not talking about 24 hours in Monte Carlo, or a weekend for Mardi Gras. I mean a real, full blown, two weeks at least vacation. Away from being worried all the time."
She raised an eyebrow at him. "Who says I worry all the time?"
He grinned at her, kissing her once. "C'mon. Let's go somewhere."
"Where? To do what? We'd be bored stiff."
"Good. We can get drunk and have sex and eat chocolate until we never want to go on vacation again." He kissed her again.
"Hell, Nate, where would we go? You know we'll never get far enough away to avoid someone calling us to do something. Why else do we always take two-day vacations, max? Because we can't get away for any longer without somebody finding us. X-Force is unavailable? Somebody call Nate and Dom. Don't want the X-Men to get hurt - fuck, just call Nate and Dom, they'll do it.'"
He put his cheek to her temple and laughed, holding her in the circle of his arms until she laughed with him for a while.
"C'mon, Nate, it's getting cold." She wiggled free, and Nathan closed the refrigerator door before following her out to the living room.
"I'm serious though, Dom. No one can say we haven't earned this. We need the down time."
"Summers, the last time I took a vacation it was to recover from brain surgery. I don't take vacations unless forced."
"Why are you fighting me on this? I know you want to go - you wanted to say yes the minute I mentioned it. Just say yes."
"You haven't told me where you're thinking of going."
"I don't know where we're going to go. Just say yes. You need a vacation that doesn't involve recovering from an injury. Those aren't vacations, anyway. If they were, we'd have spent half our lives on vacation." He took her hand in his, and she frowned at him, as if he was growing flowers out of his nostrils.
"What's with you today? Mr. Touchy-Feely let's-go-on-vacation, we'll-have-fun."
He squeezed her fingers, and tried to make his heart feel less heavy, trying to remember that he'd changed his mind about this day, about how he was going to think and act and feel and speak. "I saw someone try to kill you yesterday. I watched him raise a gun to your back. I saw a twelve year-old boy look down the sights and picture you dead, and I swear I felt him put finger on the trigger, and think about what it would be like to watch your chest burst open. I felt him wish he could be on both sides of you, to see the bullet go in and come out."
The blood under her milk-pale skin seemed to disappear entirely, leaving her almost gray. "Nate-"
"No, Dom. It's just - I want to just be around you for a while. Just forget all this shit, and be with you, and forget all about how much I hate that kid, and how glad I am that he bled to death all over the dirt." He smiled a little more firmly this time. "So just say yes."
"Yes."
He grinned, all the way up into his eyes, and kissed her again.
"Don't go thinking that story will work all the time, though. That was a one-shot deal," she whispered against his face, then leaned back, still in his arms. "Next time, I'm going to say no, no matter what it is just so you don't get some idea that I'm easy."
"You're not?." He said, carefully and swiftly tripping her feet out from under her and pushing her onto the couch.
"You're just damn lucky," she growled, laughing, "that you've got your amnesty today. I'll _still_ probably kick your ass for it tomorrow."