Clockworks and Cold Steel
"You goddamned sonovabitch!"
It was more or less the greeting he'd expected. As was the punch that hit him hard enough in the right side to take his breath away, and leave him vulnerable to the leg sweep that knocked him to the floor. The kick to his midsection that followed was more vicious than he'd been anticipating, however. Somewhat wryly, he realized her boots must have had steel toes. "Nice to see you too, Dom," he croaked out.
That earned him another kick, and he decided that keeping his mouth shut was probably the better option.
She'd been hard to find. By the time he'd made it back to the land of the living, she'd buried herself deep. She'd made a lot of enemies recently--he certainly shared some of the blame for that--and this was the safest bet for her. For all her recklessness, Domino wasn't actually in any hurry to die.
With Gareb dead and the Infonet destroyed, he'd had to find her the old fashioned way. And since he'd managed to alienate everyone he'd been on even passing good terms with, that had required begging on his part. A lot of begging. He was pretty sure G.W. had recorded the whole thing for posterity, the bastard.
"Give me one good reason not to fucking shoot you."
He didn't really have one. He couldn't write off her anger as
unjustifiable, after all. He'd let her think he was dead. Again. Well,
'let' was too strong a word--he hadn't exactly been around to correct
the misconception--but that wasn't going to matter to Dom, and rightly
so. He didn't have an answer for her, so he just laid there, clutching
at his side and looking as vulnerable as possible.
Dom made a disgusted noise and turned away. "You're so fucking pathetic."
He figured that was as close as permission as he was likely to get, and got gingerly to his feet. "Dom..."
"Don't you /dare/ apologize to me. That 'sorry has no meaning' bullshit aside, you're /not/ sorry. You don't, for a single minute, regret making me get on that goddamned boat so that I'd be safe while you pulled yet another nihilistic stunt. Go ahead. Tell me I'm wrong." The look on her face was one of pure, unadulterated rage.
"You know I can't." He wasn't. Not for a single second had he ever
regretted that choice. She wasn't Wade. She wasn't dumb enough to fall
for his little tricks. She knew him too well, could read his every move,
was probably the only person on Earth who could come close to keeping
track of the chess game he was constantly playing with the world. She
would have stayed until the bitter end, and he would have lost her. She
was the only thing that kept him fighting these days, and he would have
lost her. Was he a coward? Yes. Had he known that her subsequent anger
might mean losing her in a less literal, but far more terrifying way?
Yes. None of that mattered. The only thing that did was Dom/alive. /He
could try explaining, but it wouldn't matter, not to her. Her view of
the world had no room for chivalry, no room for his particular brand of
love. Her love was immature, intense and violent, full of conflicted
feelings. Not that he'd have her any other way.
"God. Sometimes I just hate you. Really fucking hate your guts, Nate.
And then you vanish, and I know you're not really dead, but sometimes I
/want/ it that way. I want for you to really be truly fucking /dead/
just so I can get out of this /thing/ we call a relationship. I'm tired
of you fucking up every single thing you touch."
"I can leave, Dom. If that's what you want. I can leave, and I won't come back. Ever." It would just about kill him, but she was right, and it wasn't fair. They both had their problems, and he didn't have a hope in hell of fixing his own, let alone hers.
She looked away from him. "Won't work. I'd as soon put a bullet through your head as look at you today, but next week, I'll probably be in love with you all over again. That's how it always works."
"Dom..." It was tantamount to suicide, but he reached for her anyway. It
wasn't a fairytale sort of story, she didn't give in to his embrace,
didn't break down and sob on his shoulder grateful he was alive. Her
anger was still there, tempered for the moment but liable to flare again
before it is all over, and they got back to what passed for normal. He
certainly didn't begrudge her that.
They'd never have that perfect romance. They were flawed people, and the
lives they lived were a tragedy. They'd probably meet their fitting end,
one of these days, although the future was by no means certain, even for
him.